


Walking Through Windows

by untune_the_sky



Series: Soulmate AU [4]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Briefest Introduction to the Maximoff Twins Ever, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Has Issues, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Bucky Barnes Returns, Bucky Regresses A Little (But It's Okay), Bucky Uses Training Phrases (NOT Trigger Phrases) on Natasha, Bucky's Doing So Much Better!, Bucky's Working Through Some Stuff, Canon Divergence - Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Canon-Typical Violence, Cliffhanger (I'm Sorry), Clint's Fatalism Amuses Me, F/M, Finally Meeting Wade's Major Soulmate, Gen, Graphic Discussion Of Violence/Injuries Sustained, He'll Get Over That Eventually (I Promise), Hydra Is Terrible, Implied/Referenced Torture, Laserjet Printers, M/M, Mentioned Assassination, Mexico!, Mild Home Invasion (Tony Stark Style), Nobody's Actually Happy About That, Pancake Shields, Pancake Tacos, Past Torture, Platonic Soulmates, Plexiglas Doors, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Protective Bucky Barnes, Protective Clint Barton, Reckless Steve Rogers, Rescuing Bucky Barnes, Romantic Soulmates, Seriously Steve Is Super Angry, Sokovia!, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Steve Is Angry, Still Being Willfully Obtuse, Teamwork!, Temporary Maiming, There's An Explosion, They're Also Very Apologetic, Violence!, Wade Fanboys Cap, Wade Gets Injured But He's Okay, Wade Is Wise, Wade is a Good Bro, Wade's Guns Are Magical, Waking Up, Wanda & Pietro Are Awesome, reintegration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-24
Updated: 2016-04-21
Packaged: 2018-04-26 18:53:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 58,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5016250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/untune_the_sky/pseuds/untune_the_sky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p></p><div class="center">
  <p>“I’m trying, but I’m graceless.<br/>Don’t have the sunny side to face this.<br/>I am invisible and weightless.<br/>You can’t imagine how I hate this.<br/>Graceless.<br/><br/>“I’m trying, but I’m gone through the glass again.<br/>Just come and find me.<br/>God loves everybody, don’t remind me.<br/>I took the medicine and I went missing.<br/>Just let me hear your voice, just let me listen.”<br/><br/>“Graceless” — The National<br/><br/>***</p>
</div><br/>The asset now finds it difficult to think of himself <i>only</i> as the asset.<br/><br/><div class="center">
  <p>***</p>
</div><br/>Clint lets an arrow fly and nocks another as the first hits its mark. This has been one hell of a mission — he’s got the blood spatter and bruises on his face to prove it.
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First and foremost, massive thanks go to Michael, for giving this a once over for me. Thanks to Zip and Tink for letting me throw random bits and pieces at them as I write it. Their encouragement has been invaluable.
> 
> Also, a _huge_ thank you to everyone who's left such kind feedback on this series! Your questions and enthusiasm have been so, so appreciated! :) 
> 
> I have quite a bit of this written already (it's currently sitting at over 25k), but I'm attempting to not break my beta's brain. Thus, I'm writing like a fiend and handing it over in sections. If you're just dropping in, I think it's best to read [Until This Dream Is Over](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4872994), followed by [This Delicate Balance](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4915810), as it might be confusing otherwise. The first fic in the series, [The Other Half](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4862876) is Clint/Natasha and gives some background into their relationship as well as insight into how the soulmarks in this 'verse work. I don't think, however, that you have to read it to make sense of the later works in series.
> 
> I'll be adding warnings/tags as things progress! If you see something you think ought to be warned for, please leave me a comment and I'll get on it ASAP. 
> 
> If you're interested in a soundtrack of sorts, check out the end notes.

The asset now finds it difficult to think of himself _only_ as the asset.

It was not difficult before, but Wilson thinks of him as Sarge and sometimes calls him B-meister or some other ridiculous derivative of either Bucky or Barnes. The asset has not asked for clarification. He is still not entirely sure how he feels about it, if he is honest. And he does try to be honest, these days. At least with himself. Most of the time with Wilson. The mercenary’s unpredictability makes him both entertaining and a valuable ally in a conflict.

The asset has a third mark. The voice that lurks in the back of his mind — and which, more and more, has been coming farther forward to assert its opinions — is vastly amused by this mark. The asset wonders how many marks he will acquire before the mission he has assigned himself is complete.

The third mark is a smiling fish in a taco shell wearing a sombrero and holding a margarita. It is on his right shoulder blade. He has not told Wilson about its existence, but it developed after the night in the safe house in Wemmel. Mostly, he does not want to hear what his mark is on the mercenary. He is not sure that his soul should be allowed to make marks. He remembers that his other self, the self from before the fall, worried that the mark his soul left on his soulmate would be an ugly thing. But he also remembers that before the fall, Rogers’ soulmark was not ugly. He wonders what it looks like now, how drastically it has changed.

But the asset-who-is-Barnes should not be thinking about Rogers right now.

Right now, he needs to finish clearing the Hydra safe house in Detroit. It is not overly large, but it _was_ full of the kind of expendable Hydra peons that make fighting difficult because the piles of bodies wind up getting so high that they impede mobility. The asset-who-is-Barnes has been shot three times on this mission alone and blood loss is beginning to impact his response time. He would like Wilson to finish whatever he is doing so they can go back to their own safe house and he can dig the bullets out. The asset-who-is-Barnes’ body will expel the bullets naturally, but that process is slow and painful. He prefers to speed it along as much as possible.

The asset-who-is-Barnes would very much like to go back to New York. He is tired of Detroit. It is not wrong, it’s just different. A different type of noise, a different type of people, a different type of everything. Even the tacos are different. That was a disappointing discovery. So the asset-who-is-Barnes makes a final sweep of the second floor of the detached, two-story brick home. There is one sub-level. This is a quiet neighborhood. In deference to the people unknowingly living alongside Hydra agents, the asset-who-is-Barnes insisted they use silencers and vetoed blowing the building up. He also made sure Wilson left his RPG launcher at their safe house in New York.

Not that it matters much. Wilson knows the type of people who would be willing to drop a tank into the middle of downtown Detroit for enough money. The asset-who-is-Barnes pauses at the head of the stairs, worry briefly flickering through him. The mercenary has, by his standards, been quiet for a very long time. The asset-who-is-Barnes touches the comm at his ear. “Wilson,” he says. “Sitrep?”

Silence answers his query.

He last saw Wilson downstairs. The mercenary was contemplating eating a doughnut after killing the agent who brought them to the door. The asset-who-is-Barnes is not sure how he feels about these Hydra agents. They seem very young and very inexperienced. They are well indoctrinated, though. Two of them cracked cyanide capsules between their back molars before he had a chance to ask any questions.

It is probable that Wilson took the basement while the asset-who-is-Barnes took the second floor after they cleared the first. Hopping the railing rather than bothering with the stairs themselves, the asset-who-is-Barnes drops into a crouch in the foyer, legs absorbing the shock of impact. The floor beneath him quakes and he frowns — he is not heavy enough, even wearing all his gear, to have destabilized the flooring. He straightens and steps back, stumbling as his side twinges. Two bullets are lodged beneath his ribs on his left. The third is in the meat of his upper, right arm.

The asset-who-is-Barnes does not appreciate being shot.

He leaves a smear of blood on the wall, the red stark against the white-painted sheetrock.

The floor shakes again, the hardwood splintering at the end of the hall. This does not bode well for Wilson. Or perhaps it does not bode well for the house. The flooring at the end of the hall closest to the kitchen buckles. The asset-who-is-Barnes pushes himself away from the wall and backsteps quickly as dust plumbs upward.

Still frowning, he waits and listens. Wilson is not dead; he is virtually impossible to kill. The asset-who-is-Barnes is fairly certain that even decapitation would not permanently succeed. He is not worried about the mercenary.

“Sorry!” Wilson calls. The hole in the floor emits the distinctive sound of a living body scrabbling through debris.

“You have compromised the structural integrity of the house, Wilson,” the asset-who-is-Barnes says as he steps forward to peer into the hole.

“Sorry!” The mercenary repeats. “But I found some _really cool stuff_!”

“Mission parameters state — ”

“I know, I know. But seriously, you should come down here,” Wilson says. “Just don’t come through the hole, you’ll land on me.”

The asset-who-is-Barnes suppresses a sigh, because until he goes to see what the mercenary has found, Wilson will not come out of the basement. They are wasting time. He walks to the door to the lower level, stepping over and around the bodies on the floor as he moves. The stairway down is lit from above by bare bulbs that swing as he passes beneath them.

When he reaches the foot of the stairs, the asset-who-is-Barnes halts. There is a chair.

There is a chair.

There is —

“So, this kind of sucks,” Wilson says. He is lying beneath the rubble of what was, apparently a load-bearing wall. When the wall came down, the floor above collapsed, dropping debris on top of the already partially buried mercenary. But there is a chair.

There is a chair.

There is —

“Uh, Sarge? Little help? This isn’t the worst sitch I’ve ever been in, but I’d like to not have to deal with the whole necrotic flesh thing. Regrowing a limb while the dead one’s still partially attached is super gross.” Wilson’s legs are trapped beneath cinderblocks and the stove from the kitchen. Apparently more than just the flooring at the end of the hall collapsed.

Blood begins to pool around Wilson’s left side. But there is a chair.

There is a _chair_.

There is —

“Sarge?” Wilson says, his usual good cheer in the face of probable dismemberment fading. “ _Barnes_ ,” he finally demands. “Me and your moods get along pretty good. But Hydra _ruined my new shirt_ and I am _not_ up for dealing with whatever thing you have going on right now. Maybe once I’ve got two functioning kidneys again.”

The asset-who-is-Barnes cannot pull his eyes away from the chair. It is the first time he has seen one since he was wiped after his confrontation with Rogers on the bridge. When he returned to the bank, to the vault, after the incident on the helicarrier, the chair was gone. Everything was gone. He suspected the complicated redhead’s involvement but he could not be sure — there is no way to be sure. Which means this could be _that_ chair or it could be a completely different chair. And if there are multiple chairs —

A bullet rips through the back of the chair, leaving a significant hole in its wake. A moment later, another follows the first and, while he watches, a third. The asset-who-is-Barnes observes, mystified, as the chair is torn to pieces by bullets. Where are the bullets coming from? He is dazed when he finally realizes that the bullets are coming from _Wilson_ , who is trapped in the basement of the Hydra safe house they are raiding. Were raiding. He does not think they are still raiding it. Everyone is dead.

Wilson is bleeding profusely. His neon pink shirt is stained and, as he noted earlier, very ruined. The asset-who-is-Barnes can still read the black bubble letters, though, that spell out ‘DODGE BETTER.’ Wilson was very pleased with the shirt when he arrived at their launch point for the mission wearing it over his usual red and black spandex.

“Barnes,” the mercenary’s voice is flat. “If you’re finished having a moment?”

“Yes,” the asset-who-is-Barnes says, blinking himself back into the present more purposefully than he has had to in months. It takes him the better part of an hour to get the mercenary out from under the debris that buries him. During that time, neither Wilson nor the asset-who-is-Barnes speak. They take the mercenary’s left foot with them. The asset-who-is-Barnes is inclined to leave it behind — it is not as though Wilson’s DNA and various other body parts are not strewn across hundreds of crime scenes the world over, after all — but the mercenary disagrees.

“It’s _my_ foot. If I wanna take it with us, we’re taking it with us.” The asset-who-is-Barnes concedes the point, though he still hesitates. He leaves Wilson to worry about collecting his foot and walks back over to the chair. Using his left hand, he finishes ripping it into exceptionally tiny pieces. It is not an action taken in the pursuit of catharsis. Rather, it is the only _sensible_ course of action. He does not want this technology, even incomplete portions of it, falling into the hands of people who might be able to reverse engineer it. No one should have this type of technology at their disposal.

That accomplished, the asset-who-is-Barnes returns to Wilson and eyes him for a moment before bending down and hefting the mercenary over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry.

“If anyone asks if this happened,” Wilson says, voice slightly muffled by his mask and the fact that his head is hanging upside down behind the asset-who-is-Barnes, “I will deny it.” There is a brief pause before he continues, “Or I’ll milk it for all its worth. Why, _yes_. I was _that_ close to the Winter Soldier’s backside. Why, _yes._ It is _very_ shapely. Why, _yes_. It is squishy to the tou— ”

Wilson is unable to finish that sentence. The asset-who-is-Barnes has dropped him on his head beside the stolen car they drove to the safe house. The asset-who-is-Barnes has a feeling the mercenary was less than two seconds away from groping him and he prefers not to know what his reaction to that might have been. The majority of potential outcomes would not yield positive results.

“Get into the car,” the asset-who-is-Barnes says. “I’ll finish in the house.”

What he means when he says ‘finish in the house’ is actually ‘spread some gasoline around and set the house on fire.’

After the asset-who-is-Barnes returns to the car, Wilson says from his position in the backseat, “You said that we weren’t going to trash the house.”

“No,” the asset-who-is-Barnes says, sliding into the driver’s seat. “Mission parameters stated that we would not _blow the house up_.” He turns on the headlights and checks the rear and side-view mirrors before pulling onto the street. They are several blocks away from the now-burning house, and the asset-who-is-Barnes looks at the buildings. It is unlikely that the damage to the house will lower the property value of the lots around it given the number of already burnt-out buildings in the area.

The clock on the dashboard tells him it is nearing 0400. They will need to sleep.

Their safe house in Detroit is a basement apartment. The asset-who-is-Barnes is thankful for this fact when he drags Wilson, who is clutching his severed foot in one hand, through the door. It is at the back of the house and the light at the corner has been broken for weeks. They had not intended to stay in Detroit for an extended period of time. Intel mined from the data they acquired in Europe named a high-ranking Hydra official who made the city his home.

Wilson suggested they take a break from their Stealthy European Whirlwind Revenge Tour to handle some business on the home front. The asset-who-is-Barnes does not agree that this is the name of the operation they ran — and will continue to run, once they return to Europe. It is, however, an exercise in futility to argue with the mercenary when it comes to these sorts of things, and the asset-who-is-Barnes does not wish to waste more time.

Dropping Wilson on the threadbare couch, the asset-who-is-Barnes looks at the man and asks, “Are you going to have to regrow the entire foot?”

“Yeah,” Wilson replies, pulling his mask off of his head. The blood on his shirt has dried and, in the dim light, it looks almost black. ‘DODGE BETTER’ is still legible, though.

“You did not dodge better. I believe you dodged worse.”

“ _Every_ one’s a critic,” Wilson mutters.

“I am not criticizing you. I am stating facts. You got hit by bullets the last time. This time a _stove_ fell on you. It should be significantly easier to dodge a stove,” the asset-who-is-Barnes walks into the kitchen as he sheds his tacvest and weaponry. He pauses, though, to open the refrigerator and pull out all of the leftover takeout containers inside it. He drops them on the coffee table in front of the mercenary and then moves through to the bedroom he claimed as his own.

“I was a _little_ distracted,” Wilson calls, mouth obviously full of food.

“Can you not just stick your foot back on? Will your healing factor not take care of the rest?” The asset-who-is-Barnes’ serum-enhanced physiology obviously does not operate in such a manner. He pauses to consider that. He does not actually know if that statement is true. The Soviets and Hydra took off the rest of his arm to make way for the prosthetic. Perhaps, had they attempted to reattach the original arm, it would have worked. He has no desire to test this hypothesis.

“If it was a clean cut, sure,” Wilson says. “Did that once, with my arm. But the stove kind of did the ‘smash the bone, pulverize the skin, then put so much pressure on the initial point of impact that it detaches the limb’ thing. So not so much with the easy reattachment.”

The asset-who-is-Barnes strips out of his tactical gear, leaving him in a black t-shirt and gray-black fatigues. The shirt sports bullet holes and is stained with blood. He walks into Wilson’s room and pulls the mercenary’s go-bag from its place beneath the bed, tossing it onto the couch as he pauses on his way to the bathroom. He is experiencing a significant drop in functionality due to the wounds he sustained. Dealing with them now is preferable to dealing with them later and, with Wilson out of commission thanks to his missing foot, the asset-who-is-Barnes will have to dig the bullets out of his side and arm himself. “That was the last safe house,” he says.

Nothing in the house itself indicated there were any other fallback locations within the city and the Hydra official they came here for has been dead for six days. If it weren’t for the fact that the man had a list of three safe houses and their coordinates in his pocket when he died, they would have left immediately after killing him. It’s good to have proof that, though Hydra thinks itself infallible, it’s still made up of human beings who are often very stupid in many, many ways.

“Seems like,” Wilson agrees, slurping something into his mouth.

The asset-who-is-Barnes realizes he did not bring the other man a fork. Sighing, he grabs one and a napkin, then drops them on Wilson’s head before continuing through to the bathroom. “So we’ll go back to New York tomorrow.”

“Works for me.”

“You’ll have two feet by then?”

“Probably,” Wilson says, shrugging as he digs into the still-cold tikka masala. “Maybe. If not, just prop me up in the back of the car or something.”

 

* * *

 

Clint lets an arrow fly and nocks another as the first hits its mark. This has been one hell of a mission — he’s got the blood spatter and bruises on his face to prove it. Just getting to his current location, the flat roof of a guardhouse a good hundred yards or so from the main fight, had been a challenge.

Tasha sprained her ankle when the man she engaged caught it and used it to lift her off the ground and throw her, but she’ll never admit it while they’re in the field. She did manage to keep the guy from shooting an RPG at Tony, though, so props to the feisty, Russian redhead.

Tony zooms by overhead, probably making sure reinforcements aren’t coming up the access road _and_ trying to figure out which part of the facility he needs to blow up to stem the flow of Hydra agents that keep coming out of the ground. Clint would bet every single one of the grappling arrows Tony made for him that there’s an underground complex that was _definitely_ not on the schematics they accessed before going on the mission.

Clint, for his part, is splitting his time between shooting Hydra stragglers, making sure nobody sneaks up on Tasha’s six, and trying to keep everyone from shooting Steve.

Steve, who’s being a nuisance.

Steve, who hasn’t had his shield in his hand for more than a couple of seconds at a time and keeps leaving himself open to all kinds of injuries. The idiot.

Though really, this is Barnes’ fault. You can’t let someone get used to your presence, build up the _expectation_ that you’re going to be somewhere when they’re doing a certain _idiotic_ thing, and then suddenly stop showing up. You _especially_ can’t do that to someone as stubborn as Steve.

Their friendly sniper, the one who showed up for every single mission they ran for months after Lyon — the one they all _know_ is Barnes, even though none of them bother to specify anymore — hasn’t shown up in three months. Three long, _painful_ months during which Clint has watched Captain America, a man he likes to consider a friend, throw himself into ever more dangerous situations on the off chance that Barnes might appear _this_ time. Which might not be so bad if Steve wasn’t actually getting _hurt_ one out of three times he did something stupid.

It might not take Steve six weeks to heal a broken bone, but Clint knows it still has to hurt like a son of a bitch.

So it’s been three months, and now Clint’s just waiting for the ticking time bomb that is Steven Grant Rogers to detonate. Hopefully, the super soldier will go off somewhere that’s nowhere near Tasha or himself, because Clint really doesn’t want to have to deal with the fallout.

The fallout, he’s sure, is going to be epic.

Steve goes down, some kind of blast from an energy weapon hitting his shoulder — where the hell is the shield? — and Clint hears Tony turning the air blue as he rains repulsor fire down on the group of Hydra agents attempting to close in on Captain America’s prone form.

“He’s not _here_ , Steve,” Clint grits, shifting another quarter of his attention to killing the Hydra assholes Tony didn’t take down. Quick and accurate — he’s gotta make sure he has enough time to switch his focus back in case someone tries to go for Tasha.

Not that either the master assassin or the super soldier appreciate concern, of course.

The only answer Clint gets in reply is a huff of air and a quiet noise that he’s pretty sure Steve didn’t mean to make.

“He’s _not_. So quit acting like he’s gonna pop up out of the woodwork to save your dumb ass,” Clint continues, one of his arrows skimming over Steve’s good shoulder as the super soldier pushes himself up, favoring the side that took the hit from the energy blaster. “ _Monumental_ idiot.”

He doesn’t try to muffle the words as he says them, not at all worried about the good Captain’s opinion on the matter. He’s being an idiot. Needlessly reckless — it’s like a choreographed routine of sheer stupidity, sometimes. And that’s _saying_ something, considering Clint’s the one thinking it. Clint, who enjoys jumping off of buildings with questionably functional grappling arrowheads — for fun!

He gets it, though. He does. Clint gets that this is the closest Steve has come in _years_ to feeling like his soulmate exists, like he cares. It’s one thing to think your soulmate’s out there but old and probably bitter — it’s another thing entirely to find out your soulmate’s out there, he’s your best friend from childhood, and he’s been brainwashed by the Russians into becoming the greatest assassin of all _time_.

But since Barnes _isn’t_ here — is, in fact, off doing whatever assassin-y thing it is that he thinks is more important than making sure his ridiculous soulmate doesn’t pointlessly sacrifice himself — Steve needs to pull his head out of his ass and get his shit in _gear_. Because Clint _also_ gets that Barnes has, like, seventy years’ worth of conditioning to work through and that _sucks_.

Loki only had _him_ for a couple weeks, just long enough to kill Coulson and bunches of other people Clint had worked with for over a decade. That’d been bad enough. But Clint read the files Tasha dumped on the ’net, the ones that’d pertained to people he actually cared about, anyway. He knows that Hydra tortured Barnes in addition to brainwashing him — and then sent him to kill people he used to be friends with. Or well — they sent him after Howard Stark, which. Clint isn’t going to touch that with a ten foot pole because _he_ has no idea how _Tony_ is dealing with that.

If Tony’s dealing with it at all.

“Seriously,” Tony chimes in, doing another flyover before shooting off a couple mini missiles. “You keep pulling this Bella shit, Cap, and I’m benching you.”

The missiles blow up the door that stands between them and the room full of scientific doodads that drew their attention to this location in the first place. They’ve had absolutely no luck finding the scepter just hopping from base to another looking for it. Even all of Jarvis’ algorithms haven’t turned up anything useful. So Tony suggested that, if they were just targeting bases at random, they might as well hit up the ones full of Hydra science.

Clint decides his idea about the scepter being in a Hydra installation that’s so far off the grid the people working there might not even know the grid _exists_ is looking more and more likely. _He’s_ been to two of Fury’s black box hideaways in the middle of nowhere. He knows just how secret those can be. And how effectively they can be guarded.

“You can’t _bench_ me,” Steve says, voice strained.

“Wanna bet? I pay for this shit. You run the missions, Cap, but I put fuel in the Quinjets. If Valero doesn’t get its monthly payment, you don’t go anywhere exciting and full of Hydra agents with which to play whack-a-mole.” Tony’s voice is light, almost like he’s teasing Steve, but Clint knows he’s not.

They _might_ have had an emergency team meeting a couple days ago about this very problem. Captain America getting offed by a Hydra goon or goonette who gets in a lucky shot — because Steve’s waiting for his knight in vibranium and black leather to drop from the rafters like a fucking _bat_ — will do no one any good at all. Not to mention, Clint’s pretty sure the world isn’t ready for a Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, aka the Winter Soldier, who is completely unhinged because somebody murdered the only person who might be able to remind him that, aside from the cyborg arm, he’s actually a human being.

Thor’s laid up for the moment because apparently some strains of _E. coli_ are wicked enough to take down even the god of thunder himself. Which is, honestly, not something Clint wants to think about. Bruce is with the Asgardian, making sure he doesn’t expire.

Steve doesn’t respond to Tony’s quip about jet fuel, choosing instead to block a scattering of bullets with the shield that’s reappeared from the ether. The bullets ricochet, hitting two of the men who fired them, and Clint takes out the last two with a beautiful double-shot, if he does say so himself. Two arrows at once, throat shots each. He’d buff his nails and pretend to demur the praise he so rightly deserves, but his moment is overshadowed.

“There’s nothing here,” Tasha says. She’s been quiet since the ankle thing, focusing on the nitty gritty of the fight and making sure no one else on the team notices her slight limp. Except him. She knows she can’t hide it from him, anyway, and it’s not like he’s gonna blow her cover. But she’s the first Avenger to make it close enough to peer through the blown up door, so her declaration catches all their attention.

“Excuse you, what?” Tony demands, wheeling abruptly in the air. He shoots back to the still-smoking hole that was once a locked door and lands heavily, pavement cracking beneath the weight of the Iron Man suit.

“There’s nothing here,” Tasha repeats, gesturing for Tony to look for himself.

“There’s a computer terminal,” Tony says, frowning. There should have been a _lot_ more than a computer terminal in there. All the intel they had gathered suggested this was a prime cache of Hydra technology, research, and development. They’ve seen some weird, new weapons during the fight itself, but nothing like what the files from the info dump suggest should be here.

“Right. A single terminal in an otherwise completely empty room,” Tasha says, tone dry as the desert.

“That doesn’t sound shady at all,” Clint offers, sarcasm positively dripping from the words as he clicks through his remaining arrowheads to see what he’s got.

“Hush, wonder twins. I’m trying to figure out if I can get Jarvis in there so I don’t trip any physical death trap wires,” Tony says. A little metal flap pops open to reveal a small compartment and the next thing Clint knows, a tiny little flashing light has attached itself to the computer terminal, as close to the hard drive as it can get. “Okay, so now we’re all gonna go stand with Merida, just in case accessing the files blows this place all to hell.”

The group retreats, Steve yanking his shield out of the wall it had lodged in as Clint hops down from his perch.

Half a minute later, Tony says, “Jarvis is in, streaming data now — ”

Which is when the building explodes, sending debris flying toward them at dangerous speeds. They barely manage to hit the deck, ducking behind a combination of the Iron Man suit and Steve’s shield.

“Called it,” Clint says once the roar of the explosion and the sound of pieces of the building hitting their metallic cover quiets down.

Tasha coughs and he frowns a little, shifting to get closer to her. She shakes her head, though, and clears her throat before saying, “Did you get anything useful before it detonated?”

Tony is flexing the arm and the knee joints of the suit to make sure nothing was damaged. He takes a moment before saying, “I don’t know. Do we know anything about a place called Sokovia?”

“Sort of, but let’s discuss it somewhere that’s not burning,” Clint says, standing up as he keeps one eye on Tasha and the other on Steve. Steve, who is looking at the ruins of the building they’d just fought to get to, the bodies laid out around it. Some of them had undoubtedly been alive when the building blew.

“Hill will handle cleanup,” Steve says.

Clint nods, waiting just long enough for Tasha to begin her careful walk back to the jet before he heads off in that direction, too.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Zip, Tink, and Michael for all giving this section a once-over. I need to give a shout out to 'stina for making sure my info about Detroit in the previous chapter was correct. :)
> 
> Also, I cribbed some of the dialogue in this section directly from AoU, but it is by _no_ means AoU compliant (for obvious reasons). 
> 
> Again, if you see anything in the chapter that I haven't warned for but that you think I ought to, please drop me a comment.

They do, in fact, prop Wilson up in the back of the car. The asset-who-is-Barnes vetoes the mercenary’s plan to craft himself a false cast, pointing out that it’s much easier to just cover the missing half of Wilson’s foot with a loose bandage and a blanket. Also, he does not want to have to go to an arts and crafts store to purchase the items necessary for the construction of a fake cast.

They start the ten-hour drive from Detroit to New York the following morning after a full day’s rest and a decent night’s sleep. The trip itself is, for the most part, uneventful. No police officers pull them over, because the asset-who-is-Barnes meticulously goes the speed limit and obeys all the traffic laws.

Wilson informs him that he is using his blinker _like a boss_. Whatever that means. The asset-who-is-Barnes is thankful that the mercenary passes out at the halfway point, Taco Bell detritus littering the floorboards beneath him. It gives the-asset-who-is-Barnes time to think, to consider what their next course of action should be — to ponder the fact that he no longer entertains the possibility of choosing courses of action that do not include Wilson.

Whatever their next course of action might have been had the asset-who-is-Barnes not pulled into a rest stop an hour away from their destination to make use of the facilities, it is completely derailed while he is washing his hands. He is wearing only a loose, long-sleeved v-neck t-shirt because he had no need to cover his arm while driving. There is no one else in the bathroom — he does not have to worry about the vibranium drawing unwanted attention. This also means, however, that when he catches sight of the tiny brown spool sitting just beneath his left collarbone toward the center of his chest, there is no one to double-check what he thinks he sees.

It is in the rest stop bathroom, an hour outside New York City, that the asset-who-is-Barnes, the asset formerly known as Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes (also, the Winter Soldier), realizes something is very, very wrong with his soulmate.

The thread is turning black.

It was red —

It was white —

It was red —

It was blue-yellow or —

Yellow-blue, depending on the day —

It had turned gray three times —

It had turned black once —

It is in the process of turning black _now_.

Fear, visceral and electric, shoots through him.

Not bothering to dry his hands, he pulls the collar of the t-shirt far enough to the side that he can see the whole of his soulmark. The thread trailing from the needle to the spool is all black. The embroidered circle of perfect quarter-inch stitches that circles the metal plating atop all the scars is still red, mostly. It is turning black, though, from the bottom of the circle up.

That might explain why he did not notice the change before, but the asset-who-is-Barnes might not have noticed it anyway. He was busy killing Hydra lackeys. He was busy flying from Sweden to Bulgaria to Miami to Denver to Detroit. He was busy digging bullets out of his side and his arm. He was busy bantering with Wilson in their own peculiar way. He was busy plumbing new depths of red in his ledger. He was busy —

He was busy —

Wilson hobbles into the bathroom, mask in place, putting as little weight on his newly regrown heel as possible. “You’ve been in here for — oh, shit.”

“The thread is black.” The words come out of the asset-who-is-Barnes’ mouth, and they sound mechanical. They sound detached. They do not at _all_ adequately convey the displaced terror that has made his insides contract.

“It’s — I mean, let’s not jump to conclusions here, Sarge.”

“The thread is _black_.”

“Okay, so it’s — I mean, it’s _mostly_ black. That’s… that can’t be _good_ , but hey! You’ve still _got_ the mark, so — ”

“Get in the car, Wilson.”

“Yessir,” Wilson says, turning around and hobbling back the way he came.

The asset-who-is-Barnes follows the mercenary.

The asset-who-is-Barnes drives, as Wilson will later tell him, like the hounds of hell are, in actual fact, nipping at his heels — like he’s got one crazy, reckless option and not one good god _damn_ thing left to lose.

The asset-who-is-Barnes drives like his life depends on it because, in his (admittedly limited) experience (recollection), when the thread turns black, _Rogers_ ’ life depends on _something_ and the asset-who-is —

The asset-who —

The asset —

_Barnes_.

Barnes must get it for him before it’s too late.

 

* * *

 

Sokovia, it turns out, is a country in Eastern Europe, formerly part of the Soviet Union’s Eastern Bloc. Hill says it’s had a rough history — it’s nowhere special, but it’s apparently on the way to _everywhere_ special. Clint’s not sure how he feels about it, in general. He’s been through it once or twice. The last time he was on an assignment, but that was strictly observation and, for whatever reason, he’d been pulled off the mission before he’d actually found anything useful.

Considering it’s home to a pretty massive Hydra installation, Clint’s betting Sitwell had something to do with rerouting SHIELD’s loyal agents. Probably too risky to let them linger once it became clear they were getting close to Hydra’s areas of activity.

He never got close enough, before, to see the castle, but he likes the trees. It’s cold and Tony’s outfitted the team with winter weather gear that doesn’t weigh ten times more than it looks like it should. Clint’s actually relatively comfortable in his very cold, very isolated nest. Tasha’s ankle is all better, Steve seems _slightly_ less inclined to throw himself in front of every single projectile or Hydra agent who comes along, Thor’s got some Earth shatteringly sexy hammer moves going on, Tony’s zooming around making wisecracks while trying to find a way into the fortress, and the Hulk is just a rampaging blur of rage and hostility.

Everything seems to be going pretty well. There are more Hydra personnel running around than initially expected given the remoteness of the base itself, but he knows they can handle it. Then Tony hits an invisible force field and lets a relatively mild expletive escape, Steve makes that ‘language’ comment, and it’s suddenly like they all just click back into their individual slots on the team.

“Are we going to ignore the fact that Cap just said ‘language’?” Tony’s voice is equal parts incredulous and gleeful.

“I know. It just slipped out.” Steve says, throwing a _motorcycle_ at a Hydra Jeep. That is _awesome_. Clint’s taking mental notes. He’s not sure for what, but it’ll all come full circle eventually.

It isn’t perfect, but Clint’s got arrows going everywhere he wants them to, there are explosions, and Tasha’s looking as lovely as ever as she electrocutes two Hydra agents at once. It is entirely possible that Clint makes some kind of noise at that — a small one. Because the next thing he knows, Tasha looks up at him, even though he’s too far away for her to see clearly, and she smirks.

“Barton, if you’re finished drooling,” Tony says. Clint’s not sure where Tony wound up, actually, but he shimmies out of his nest and down the tree, hoofing it through the trees. And that’s where everything kind of starts to go to shit.

Not the team, the team is the best it’s been in months.

Nope, the team’s fine.

It’s the part where Clint fires an arrow that… mysteriously doesn’t hit its mark that’s the first clue. That’s wonky, enough, but there are probably reasonable explanations for it. Maybe. He turns to fire a second one because why not? That miss had to be a fluke.

Suddenly Clint’s on his back, staring up at a snarky kid with a bad bleach job who came out of _nowhere_.

The kid circles him.

“What? You didn’t see that coming?” And then he’s gone.

Clint’s on his feet a moment later, intent on following the kid — or at least _trying_ to shoot him. Nobody should be able to move that fast. The bunker he _didn’t_ take out earlier starts firing again, though, and his side lights up, pain sparking along his nerves and up his spine as he hits the ground for a second time. Only this time, he’s not going to be getting back up.

“ _Clint_!” Tasha’s there, though, and he thinks he can hear actual worry in her voice — that’s kind of novel. He has no idea where she came from, but she’s there and that’s a comfort. She’s pushing something into the _gaping_ wound in his side as Steve’s voice comes over the comms.

“We have enhanced in the field.”

“Clint’s hit,” Tasha says, her voice back to being as calm as always. The bunker’s still firing and Clint’s vision is graying out at the edges. He wonders how Steve knew about the speedy kid. Or maybe there’s more than one enhanced. “Somebody wanna take out that bunker?” Tasha practically barks the question.

Hulk comes through, jolly green giant that he is, which means Clint doesn’t have to worry as much about Tasha getting shot while she keeps him from bleeding out. That’s nice.

There’s some byplay, Clint’s sure of it. He wants to contribute. He really wants to chime in after Tony’s “and for gosh sake, watch your language.” Because _no_ , Steve, that’s not going away any time soon.

Instead, his head feels like it’s full of cotton, his fingertips and his feet are tingling unpleasantly, and his hand-eye coordination is _shot_. Thor’s there all of a sudden, and so is Steve. Tasha’s still at his side holding his intestines in, he thinks. Tony’s apparently still trying to get rid of the invisible force field surrounding the castle. Clint fades out a little, coming to only when he realizes he has no idea where Hulk is. The shot of adrenaline that realization gives him is enough to get him to open his eyes completely.

It sounds like Steve is finalizing plans for storming the fortress. Thor’s going to take Clint back to the jet. Steve is going to join Tony and retrieve the scepter. Clint supposes if the god of thunder says the scepter’s in there, they’ll believe him and execute the plan accordingly.

Their intel hadn’t been conclusive. As he rests his temple against Tasha’s shoulder, Clint considers that. Should’ve figured. Genetic manipulation or whatever. They knew Hydra was experimenting with the scepter, trying to manipulate human genetics somehow. There was genuine worry, for a while, that Clint himself had been changed somehow by his interaction with the damn thing. Bruce compared current samples of his _everything_ to his SHIELD records, though, and Clint’s in the clear.

Thor hefts him up and starts to carry him bridal style through the trees toward the Quinjet, and Clint decides they shouldn’t have forgotten that Hydra was still up to some super shady shit. Of _course_ there would be freaky people here doing strange things they shouldn’t be able to do.

That was just _logic_.

Clint realizes Thor has propped him against a tree a moment later, though. His thoughts jar painfully as the back of his head hits bark — he has no idea what’s going on. He obviously missed something. Blinking one eye open — when did he close them? — he sees that Tasha’s standing in front of him. Clint smiles drowsily because it’s like she thinks all five feet nothing of her is gonna stop the fucking _battalion_ of Hydra agents who just… Jesus, did they just appear out of nowhere? Thin air? Was there a magical shimmer somewhere or is Clint just losing his damn mind? He loses his train of thought for a moment, confused, but he does realize that their odds aren’t great and he’s out of the game. Shit, he wouldn’t even trust himself with a handgun at this point, because friendly fire is _the worst_.

Comms are down.

Tony’s not here.

Hulk’s gone quiet.

Clint guesses they’re lucky Cap didn’t manage to get too far away before Hydra sprang this trap.

So they’ll fight the good fight and hope they come out on the other side. Clint doubts he’ll be there when they do, but he’s not planning to mention that to anyone.

It’s brutal.

It’s messy.

Thor and Steve are on top of things, but Tasha’s hobbled because she won’t leave him. She knows better. She _knows_ better than to stay in one place, especially when that place is as exposed as their current position. There’s nowhere for her to hide, no shadows. And she’s beautiful, she is. Nothing in the world compares to the sight of her as she fights.

Garroting one man, she leverages him into another as she swings herself around and up, thighs hooking over a third man’s shoulders as the dead weight from the first drags both her and the man she’s on to the ground. A twist of her knees and Clint hears the distinctive pop of a neck breaking. Not easy, that. He could watch her fight for the rest of his life and be content.

It occurs to him again that, at the rate he’s bleeding, he might end up doing that, anyway. History’s full of worse tragedies.

Stray thoughts hit him at random now, an odd amalgamation of commentary on the fight raging around him and whims. He would have liked to get to Acapulco. Or maybe Bermuda. Clint could have sung that Bermuda-Bahamas-come-on-pretty-mama song to her —

Tasha won’t get her soulmark tattooed back on when he’s gone. They’ve never talked about it, about what they’ll do when one of them dies. It isn’t something either of them ever wanted to consider, but Clint’s cold and —

Arrows are beautiful weapons. They’re dynamic the same way knives are. Dynamic like bullets could never be. Stab someone with an arrow in close quarters or shoot it from hundreds of yards away. He likes his bow, but it’s all metal and polymer and he _loves_ the bow he _made,_ all wood and fiber and filament—

He knows that Tasha will never let anyone else mark her the way his soul did, that it’s just for them. Clint thinks, if their positions were reversed, he wouldn’t either. He’d rather be a blank canvas. He’d rather know conclusively that she was gone every time he looked in the mirror than have that momentary jolt of _maybe_ when he caught sight of the tattoo —

She pulls her guns, still standing in front of him. The bodies are piling up, but not enough, there are still too many Hydra agents standing, and the bodies on the ground are just hindering her ability to move —

Just like Clint’s hindering her mobility on a more metaphorical level. Sort of. He thinks it’s a metaphor. But maybe it’s not, because he’s _literally_ the reason Tasha has left herself open like this —

The reason she’s taken this risk —

The reason she’s risked standing still —

He feels like maybe this is the way their story has always gone.

Closing his eyes briefly, Clint listens to the rapid-fire reverb of her shots as she fires. He knows the recoil isn’t nearly as bad as it could be, but this story — _their_ story — doesn’t have a happy ending. Not the way they’re telling it, anyway —

Where’d that enhanced kid go?

Somebody —

Somebody needs to know what the kid looks like.

An exclamation followed by an eerie quiet makes Clint pry his eyes open, first one, then the other. Once he’s able to focus, he thinks he might be hallucinating.


	3. Chapter 3

Barnes jumps from the jet over the trees where the heaviest of the fighting is, parachute opening with a snap, and he wishes he could drop faster. He knows — there was a report — the handlers exchanged information. Rogers jumps from planes over water without a chute, just his shield. Barnes wishes that this fight was taking place on a ship in open water so that he could get to it _faster_.

He can see, as he approaches, that Rogers is fighting with the so-called god.

Natalia is pinned down. He believes it is by choice. She could get away from any of the agents surrounding her easily — if she abandoned the blond man on the ground behind her. Pieces of information slide together in his mind, forming a whole picture and —

That will not do.

He glances toward Rogers once more, just to ensure his relative safety. It seems he is… bantering. He and Thor, they are bantering as they fight. One moment they are chatting. The next, the hammer comes down in a sweeping arc, hits the shield, and a bolt of lightning takes out an entire line of Hydra agents. Barnes appreciates the technique, even if he is less than pleased with the god of thunder’s general… everything.

Still, it is reassurance enough for him to cut his lines closer to Natalia than to Rogers. He falls, finally, gaining speed and velocity — using momentum to propel himself forward and into a roll downhill. Wilson jumped from the plane after him. Someone named Weasel piloted the aircraft, but refused to enter the fray. Apparently, he promised someone named Bob that he would not. This information is irrelevant.

What is relevant is that Barnes comes to his feet, weapons in hand, and slits the throat of the first man standing between his current position and Natalia’s. He approaches from her left, felling Hydra drone after Hydra drone as quickly as possible. Were Natalia not so focused on those few in her immediate line of sight, she would not have allowed herself to be flanked by the agents he is now eliminating.

Barnes frowns as he considers this.

Those few agents _do_ present the greatest threat to Barton in the moment.

 _Yes_ , Barnes thinks. _That makes sense. That is logical._ It seems they are both inclined toward reckless decision making when their soulmates are involved in the equation.

Finally within range for her to hear him, Barnes barks a half-forgotten order and she pirouettes like a marionette. Natalia moves with grace and precision, as he taught her, and they dance. He continues with the commands because he does not trust her judgment given Barton’s condition.

Barnes knows that he will pay for this synergy later.

He will accept the consequences of his actions as long as they come after all of them have escaped this forest and that fortress.

Knives, guns, hands, feet, legs, elbows — they are made of weapons and the skill to wield them.

Barnes barks another phrase — half in French, half in Russian — and Natalia is in his arms. He lifts her into a throw — she is airborne. She spins and it is elegant in a way that few are capable of appreciating. He thinks, perhaps, the archer adequately appreciates her. Barnes briefly checks on the man as Natalia rains death down on those who would have killed her soulmate. Barton’s eyes are on her, rapt — but Barnes now has other concerns.

Namely, Wilson making his entrance.

After pausing only long enough to ensure neither Rogers nor Thor intend to do Wilson undue harm, Barnes returns to his fight. He glimpsed the mercenary’s katanas when he checked, a wicked blur of silver-white that slowly tinted red as Wilson blooded them.

It is enough.

Bullets and electricity fill the air; the shouts of dying men and women echo between the tree trunks and branches. Bits and pieces of bark stick in their hair; clods of earth spray upward to splatter them all with muddy clay and fragments of loose topsoil. Barnes loses himself to the familiar rhythms and patterns of fighting beside someone he trained himself.

Others have had a hand in training Natalia, yes, but he had her first. He ingrained this move and that shift of muscle into her mind and muscle _long_ before any others. He is hidden inside her reflexes — he is a truth that he hopes she has not completely forgotten. The training that came after they erased him from her mind is false, comprised partially of implanted memories, easily seen through with practice — or so he hopes.

He wonders if she retains any conscious memory of him at all.

Slowly, Barnes allows himself to broaden his focus, expanding it beyond his immediate vicinity — beyond Natalia, her soulmate, and the bodies that litter the blood-churned snow around them. The Hydra forces ranged against them dwindle; the few who remain intent on retreat.

He would like to kill them all now, but he is low on ammunition and he does not want to waste his throwing knives. Wilson herds the stragglers he does not kill himself toward Rogers and Thor.

He and Natalia fall into resting stances, only feet away from where they began. Barton is laid out still, propped against the tree. Barnes notices that the archer’s eyes remain open, though they are glassy. Turning to Natalia, Barnes exhales slowly. Her eyes are glassy, too — blank. He realizes what has happened, the place in her mind to which he sent her, and he feels a moment of intense regret.

Her brow furrows just the smallest bit — confusion.

Moving to her, Barnes takes her face between his hands, palms and fingers cupping her cheeks and jaw as his thumbs brush gently over her eyelashes. He says in Russian, voice very soft, “ _Well done, little spider. You have exceeded my greatest expectations. Rest now. It is time to rest._ ”

A quiet noise escapes Natalia, and he watches as she comes back to herself. He watches the _now_ of her creep back into her eyes, supplanting the _then_ that he called forth. Not quite programming, not quite a series of trigger words — but not _not_ those things, either.

She focuses on him, knows him. He sees the horrible knowledge of what he did, what he _made_ her do, slam into her mind. It is not the killing that will haunt her after this day — it is the knowledge that he took away her _choice_ to kill.

Natalia jerks out of his hands and drops to the ground. She scrambles backward, away from him and to the archer’s side. Barton groans in pain as he attempts to wrap his arms around her, but Natalia does not seem to hear. Her eyes are locked on Barnes, and Barnes accepts the condemnation he sees in them as his due.

“I am sorry,” he apologizes. He knows it is not enough. She does not acknowledge it, anyway.

Barnes turns to locate Rogers.

Wilson juggles his pistols, knives, and swords.

Thor watches all of them, gaze sweeping the field of battle. It is almost as though he is trying to decide where he must stand to avoid the worst of what is likely to come. Barnes will give the Asgardian the benefit of the doubt and assume, instead, that he is ensuring no other Hydra agents surprise them while so many of his teammates are incapacitated.

Rogers stares at him.

Rolling his shoulders to loosen muscles that are inexplicably tight, Barnes approaches Rogers.

Rogers’ face is unsettlingly expressionless. Barnes is not sure how he knows this, but the eyes — Rogers’ eyes are so blue, like a summer sky at noon. They should be warm in the same way that a summer day would be warm. Barnes thinks he remembers them that way — thinks they looked at him like that in the time before the fall. Rogers’ eyes now are blue but, as they watch Barnes, they are not warm. There is recognition, Barnes knows, but Rogers’ gaze is cold — it is full of things far heavier than warmth and recognition.

The voice in the back of Barnes’ mind has been curiously quiet since he realized his soulmark was changing. It does not offer any information or make any useful suggestions now. There is only a strange sense of loss that lurks where the voice usually resides. Barnes vehemently wishes that the voice would return, even if it is only to laugh at him again. It was comforting, in its own way, because he recalls the relief that flooded him when it helped him remember how to breathe.

The voice is silent, though, so Barnes stops several feet away from Rogers and frowns. “What the _hell_ are you doing?”

The words fall out of his mouth and into the odd stillness of a winter forest, snapping the quiet but buffered by it — cushioned.

Barnes does not know where the words came from. Still, while he is not expecting Rogers to punch him, he cannot say he is entirely surprised by the action.

When Rogers’ fist hurtles toward him a second time, Barnes does not raise his arm to defend himself. He does not shift to hide the vulnerable point where metal and flesh fuse on his left shoulder. He does not attempt to stop Rogers as blow after blow finds its mark.

Moments stretch into infinity, pass in the blink of an eye. Barnes is now on his back. There is a tree root pressing painfully into his side. Blood trickles down his chin from the side of his mouth. He does not know if it is all from his newly split lip or if Rogers has opened other injuries on his face.

Distantly, Barnes registers Wilson’s exclamations of… something. Alarm, perhaps. Consternation, most definitely.

The world around them, the world outside of the space between himself and Rogers — fades. Whatever the others are saying is muffled by the ringing in Barnes’ ears. He does not know if his ears are ringing because Rogers is touching him at all, or if it is because of a blow he allowed Rogers to land. Barnes looks up at the man who is his soulmate — the man whose soul is slowly but surely blackening, if Barnes’ soulmark is to be believed — and he smiles.

Barnes smiles into the moment between one strike and the next.

Rogers freezes.

Barnes knows his teeth are bloody. His smile is not a pleasant thing — it is not reassuring. But he does not want it to reassure Rogers. “Took you long enough,” he rasps. He is not one for noble sacrifice. This is a debt he owes, recompense for the damage he wrought when he did not know any better.

Rogers’ fist drops, fingers still curled inward, but loose where they rest on the body armor covering Barnes’ abdomen. Rogers’ expression is rigid, the corners of his lips drawn tightly down, and Barnes knows that what is broken between them has not been repaired.

He does not know _how_ to repair it.

He does not know if he would _want_ to repair it, though Barnes knows there is a drive within himself to do so. There is a drive within him to _protect_ Rogers, to do _whatever is necessary_ to ensure Rogers’ safety and _happiness_.

Barnes does not understand the drive— the impulse.

The time between his realization in the rest stop outside New York and his arrival here in Sokovia allowed him to consider it. Barnes wishes he had been able to pinpoint the specific thing that has caused the change in Rogers — that shifted the thread in his soulmark to black. If he could pinpoint it, he might be able to right that specific wrong without touching the rest of what lays between them.

But he could not pinpoint it.

He still cannot.

Wilson suggested a generalized absence might be the root cause, but Barnes finds that difficult to believe. Rogers has lived in this bizarre future for long enough without his presence to know that he does not require Barnes’ constant presence. Why would Rogers _want_ Barnes near him in his current state?

When Barnes pointed that out, Wilson gave him a strange look. “Sarge,” the mercenary said. “There’s livin’ without somebody ’cause you’ve got no choice — like ’cause they’re _dead_ , right? — and then there’s livin’ without ’em ’cause _they don’t want anything to do with you_. Feel me?”

Barnes did _not_ feelWilson.

However, he also did not have a better solution with which to rectify the situation. Which is why he is here — in Sokovia — with Rogers straddling his middle as Wilson and various Avengers look on.

Rogers shoves himself up and away, eyes shuttered completely. Barnes thinks that, once upon a time, he would have been able to read the other man regardless of his attempts to shut down his expression. He knows that is not the case now. The unmistakeable emotion — irritation — that he feels as he acknowledges this fact is another thing he does not understand.

“Where’s Tony?” Rogers demands of those surrounding them.

Barnes pushes himself up, off his back.

Thor shakes his head.

Barton groans again.

Natalia remains silent.

Wilson hops from one foot to the other, digging a shallow furrow in the ground with the toe of one combat boot.

“He blew a hole through the northern side of the castle as we parachuted in,” Barnes finally offers.

“Yeah, the whole… whatever it was, the force field thingie, it flickered on and off and then blinked out — it was _so cool_ ,” Wilson says. Barnes can tell the mercenary is grinning beneath the mask. Barnes should know what Wilson intends to do next. He is surprised by his own surprise when the mercenary continues, “Hey, hey — Captain _America_. Hi. My name is Wade. Can I have your autograph?”

 

* * *

 

Doctor Cho patches Clint up easily enough. His new skin feels weird and kind of tight, but the doc swears it’s all him — and really, his miraculously healed injury is the _least_ of his worries at the moment. Tasha sat with him for the procedure, even managed to crack a few jokes in front of the others. Clint guesses she’s technically sitting with him right now, too, but… she’s sort of not. Not really. It’s like her mind is absent. Normally she’d be mocking him mercilessly by now — or maybe frowning intently at the doc’s retreating back. Instead, as he pulls his shirt over his head, she gives him nothing. Her face’s absolutely blank.

Moving slowly, he hunkers down in front of her, hands resting briefly on the seat of the chair to either side of her knees. Then Clint reaches up, thumbs brushing over her cheeks, and draws her attention down to him. It doesn’t escape him that this position is very similar to the one Barnes used to recall her from wherever she went while they fought, but Clint keeps his touch light.

“Hey,” he says, searching her eyes.

“Hey,” she whispers.

The doctor is gone, her assistants left with her, and the other Avengers are off seeing to their own wounds or debriefing with Hill. Tony, it turns out, was in the castle getting the scepter while Clint was almost dying. The billionaire also managed to get mindfucked by a second enhanced player; apparently, Cap caught sight of her right as he went into the castle. Whatever she did, it shook Tony up, but he handled it well enough to go after the Hulk before the big guy hit a heavily populated area. _And_ Tony brought in von Strucker. He’s Hill’s golden boy today, no question.

All of which means, of course, that _right now_ they have a little bit of privacy.

“Talk to me,” Clint says.

Tasha shakes her head slowly, her curls brushing his knuckles with the motion. Her lips catch on the palm of his right hand, and she presses a kiss there. “I don’t — I.” But she stops and Clint realizes she’s trembling. It’s faint, but the fact that it’s noticeable at all shocks him.

“Hey, hey,” he croons, one hand bracing the side of her neck as the other slides down to cover her fists where they’re clenched in her lap. “Okay, no talking. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want — not a thing.”

Tasha just — she sort of _crumbles_. Clint’s never seen her like this. She slides right off the chair, curls her knees up against her chest, and wraps her arms around them as she tucks herself into the space between his legs. She buries her face in the hollow of his throat, so Clint wraps his arms around her and holds on, lips pressed against her hair, until he hears a shaky exhale.

“I don’t know what he did,” she whispers, voice muffled against his t-shirt.

“Okay. I heard… some of it.”

“He — he said something. And I don’t — I just. I did what he told me to do.”

“It sounded like — like that time you showed me ballet? When you were explaining the different positions.”

Tasha makes a quiet sound, like she’s in pain.

Clint knows about the memories in her head, the ones that might or might not be true. He knows she believed, for a long time, that she trained at the Bolshoi Ballet Academy in Moscow — that she had a mother and a father, a family. He knows that she knows _now_ that none of those memories are true. He knows that she remembers bits and pieces of what happened in between the Red Room-mandated reconditioning after each mission they sent her on.

He knows that it’s a miracle she managed to gather up enough of herself to defect and become an independent contractor. Clint knows that it’s an even bigger miracle that the both of them survived long enough to meet.

More recently, of course, he knows that she remembers that Barnes was one of her instructors in the Red Room, but that she has no memory of _what_ he taught her — or when.

At the Hydra facility in Lyon, she’d said he taught her ‘everything.’

For a spy and an assassin, especially one of Tasha’s expertise, ‘everything’ is _a lot_. But she lacks _details_.

“We’ll ask him,” Clint says, palms smoothing up her back, and then down again as he tries to ground her — remind her that he’s with her, that he’ll always be with her. She’s still trembling, but he knows it’s not because she’s cold

She shakes her head. “What if — what if there are… other things. Other things he can make me do?”

Clint’s arms tighten around her, and he takes a slow breath. “Okay, so we’re staying as far away from him as possible. How about we take that vacation? I hear they’ve got awesome tiki torches in… Jamaica. Or — ” He breaks off, very vaguely remembering that he rode this train of thought while he was bleeding out in the Sokovian forest.

But both of their missions wrapped simultaneously. Thor has the scepter. Steve found Barnes and, thanks to some quick thinking on their resident demigod’s part, a way to contact the assassin. Clint and Tasha can wash their hands of everything here, and not feel even the tiniest twinge of guilt.

Her trembling subsides fractionally, and she’s breathing easier as she unwraps her arms from her knees so she can slide them around Clint’s waist, instead. “I wouldn’t mind that, but I — I have a feeling. They’re going to need us here.”

Gently, as though he’s imparting an exceedingly valuable secret, Clint tucks a curl of vibrant red hair behind Tasha’s ear and leans down just enough to whisper, “We can choose to be finished. SHIELD is gone. The Avengers can make do without us. You know where my loyalties are. Same place they’ve always been.”

 _You. They’re with you. They’ll always be with you._ Ever since she appeared in his apartment all those years ago, Clint’s known he’d never make a move without her at his back or by his side. They move in sync, in the same direction, or they don’t move at all. They’re a pair, the two of them.

Tasha smiles against the pulse at the hollow of his throat, he can feel the movement of her lips. “I know,” she says, her voice matching his in volume. Clint is reminded of the conversation they had after Loki, after they’d finished the fight and eaten the schwarma. She’d made him the same offer — unconditional escape — and respected his desire to make amends. Their situations now reversed, he listens carefully as she continues, “I know. I do. We just — you know. Greater good or… something. We’ll have to be careful, though. Okay?”

“Okay,” Clint says, pressing a kiss to her temple. He’s not really ready to move even though they’ve sorted out that they’ll stay with the team — for now, at least. Tasha doesn’t seem inclined to move, either, so Clint decides he’s good right where he is.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to the usual suspects for looking this over. Goodness knows I poked at it for long enough. :) A combination of laptop woes (resolved) and character dissonance in my brain (mostly resolved) conspired to make me fight with myself on this fic a lot. Not this section specifically, but the next few. So I'm happy to be back on track (for the most part) now! 
> 
> Check out "[You Were A Kindness](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwlPeW2eBHw)" by The National, if you're so inclined. It's literally the only reason this thing got sorted as much as it has. 
> 
> Thank you to everyone who's left such lovely feedback and kudos! I can't tell you how much motivation that provides to get things written, edited, and posted. :)
> 
> Also, Happy Holidays! I hope you all enjoy the update.

“I can’t _believe_ ,” Wilson says, frowning, “That he didn’t give me an autograph.”

“You are _beyond_ lucky that no one shot you,” Barnes says, unimpressed. It had taken all of his willpower and recently relearned self respect not to lay right back down on the ground in that forest in Sokovia when the mercenary made the request. “You have the _worst_ timing.”

“Or the _best_ ,” Wilson disagrees. “You were gettin’ your face pounded.”

“Rogers had stopped.”

“Eh,” Wilson says, shrugging. “He could’ve started again. Those Lawful Good guys can be unpredictable like that.”

“Those — what?”

“Lawful Good guys.”

“Wilson.”

“You _know_ ,” the mercenary says expectantly. “Dungeons and Dragons?”

Frowning, Barnes asks, “Are you _purposefully_ being confusing right now?”

“Aw, that’s right. You got your marbles all mixed up by Captain Spandex McSpangly-Pants. It’s all right, I can explain it!”

“Please don’t,” Barnes sighs.

Rogers had walked away from him without a backward glance after Barnes gave him Stark’s last known location. Barnes had pushed himself to his feet, given Natalia and Barton a wide berth as he walked past them, and nodded to Wilson to let him know he was going to head for their extraction point. Had Thor not requested he wait a moment, Barnes is almost certain he would not have paused long enough for the Asgardian to indicate that Rogers — or Natalia — might wish to contact him in the future. The alien prince seemed imminently reasonable, which is why Barnes allowed Wilson to share the number of a burner phone he had in his possession. Thor had wished, also, to convey his assurances that someone _would_ contact him.

In hindsight, Barnes is not so sure that anyone _should_ contact him. Also, he has patchy memories of a skinny boy, smaller than he ought to be, taking on any and every bully who happened to cross his path. That is a level of sheer, stubborn determination that he does not think Rogers has lost in the intervening years. He does not think Thor realizes just how thoroughly Rogers is aiming that very specific level of bullheadedness at Barnes.

This is all right, though.

Rogers is not dead. Not yet, at least. So Barnes has bought himself time to sort through the things which he still does not understand.

Tuning into Wilson’s unasked for explanation, he hears the mercenary say, “So _I’m_ chaotic neutral, right? You’re more… I dunno. I have a questionnaire somewhere you can fill out to be sure, but you have to be totally honest or it skews the results.”

“Wilson.”

“But I’m _guessing_ you’re like chaotic good. Sort of.”

“Wilson.”

“Like, the brainwashing is the chaos thing. You were probably...”

 _“Wilson_.”

“Well, no. You were always my favorite Commando, cause you were a _little_ shady after that whole original POW thing, y’know?”

“For the love of God. _Wade_.”

There’s a protracted moment of silence as the mercenary looks up from his fish taco and blinks at Barnes.

“What?”

Barnes does not respond for a moment. He closes his eyes and presses his fingertips gently against his temples. He has a headache. It is not Wilson’s fault, but he is not helping. The voice in the back of Barnes’ mind has not returned yet, and he is suddenly very, very tired.

Barnes says carefully, eyes still closed, “Would you _please_ stop talking about whatever it is you are talking about?”

“You okay, Sarge?” It’s like the entire train of thought Wilson was on has been derailed.

Maybe Barnes will never have to hear about lawful and chaotic things again. He can hope.

“I am tired,” Barnes says.

Wilson shoves the rest of his taco into his mouth, wipes his hands on a napkin, and nods. “Gotcha,” he says. “I’ll take first watch.” Standing, the mercenary makes his way to the very large pile of weaponry on the coffee table. He will clean each piece meticulously, a loaded gun always within reach — just in case.

“Thank you.” With that, Barnes finishes his own taco, gathering the trash off the table and throwing it all away. He is not sure if the headache is bothering him because of Rogers or because of Natalia. It is probable that he is experiencing a physiological reaction based on the aggravation of preexisting stressors exacerbated by seeing both of them — by interacting with both of them. The impact when he hit the ground during his altercation with Rogers resulted in a laceration on the back of his skull, which healed quickly — the headache does not seem to be the result of that minor trauma.

Barnes will admit that, before they even left Sokovia, he felt the weight of regret settle on his shoulders for calling forth such instant, mindless obedience in Natalia. He thinks, perhaps, it might have been different if it was just one thing or the other for her, but to be made compliant both mentally and physically with so little effort — Barnes understands why it upset her.

Washing his hands, he shakes his head, then wishes he had not. It is time for rest. Which is, of course, the precise moment that Wilson returns to the kitchen, arms loaded down with the complete, boxed DVD set of _The Golden Girls_

“This,” the mercenary says, his scarred face managing to convey something resembling pure, unadulterated happiness. “This is the _best_ time to introduce you to Bea Arthur _._ ”

Barnes raises an eyebrow.

“Bea Arthur, Sarge. Bea Arthur. She can fix anything. Everything!”

Barnes nods slowly, though he knows his eyebrows are doing something strange, and that they likely convey a high level of skepticism.

“No, seriously, I mean,” Wilson jiggles his shoulders a little from side to side.

“Perhaps another time, Wilson,” Barnes replies, sidestepping the other man and walking around him as he makes for his room. The mercenary calls something after to him, but Barnes is not paying attention, and does not ask for Wilson to repeat himself.

He is tired.

In point of fact, Barnes is _exhausted_. It has been a very long time since he felt this way. He does not like it.

Barnes thinks Wilson is adequately distracted. He thinks he has some time to himself. There are tangles in his mind, thoughts that overlap and poke at one another. Nothing is comfortable. Nothing fits nicely or neatly into the spaces where he is sure it once fit. Everything in his mind once had a place, a slot, at label. None of it wavered, none of it changed. But then, none of it had truly been _his_. Barnes’ thoughts had not been his own — neither had his actions. There is a part of him which understands that the dissonance — the cacophony — in his mind is a normal reaction to the many varied traumas he has suffered. He even thinks his mind was likely disarrayed — or at least less rigidly structured — in the time before the fall, but he does not think it was this _thoroughly_ disorganized. It is only when compared to the enforced sterility of _the asset’s_ mind that Barnes is able to recognize the patterns of thoughts he is currently utilizing, and draw that conclusion.

He makes himself ignore that conclusion, because even the jarring pain of his mind as it unwinds and takes back the places that have so long lain empty is better than _that_ — better than the echoing void of existing for one purpose and one purpose alone — of _belonging_ to someone else. Barnes sits on the bed in the room that is his, and looks at the furniture — the walls, the supreme lack of clutter.

The life he has chosen for himself is utilitarian, but it is _his_.

Attempting to dig through the jumble of current thought, implanted recollection, and the (probably true) partial memories that conflict with the false ones is useless, he knows. Barnes wishes he could remember Rogers clearly. He has real memories about all the things associated with their marks, of course, and he appreciates them. But he craves something mundane, a memory of texture or simple activity — something entirely innocuous. _Those_ are the kinds of everyday memories that others take for granted.

Barnes wants them. He had them, once.

He thinks he will never get them back.

Sometimes —

Sometimes it is like he can _almost_ grasp the things he wants. He can _almost_ see Rogers, his face or his form or even just —

Just —

Just his _hands_ or —

A particular series of _movements_ or —

But no.

No, Barnes does not have those memories, those thoughts. Hydra took them from him when they took his arm, his soulmark — when they pulled him out of his own skull, hollowed it out, and pushed their perfect weapon back into the place where he once existed. Fractured pieces of sensory memory beg for his attention. Barnes would give into them, but following those memories leads to strange things that are potentially lies — potentially truths.

Sometimes, not knowing whether a thing is true or not is for the best.

Sometimes, not knowing is also the worst.

Sometimes, compromise is the least of many circling evils.

Barnes does not want to unequivocally know that he killed a young girl to send a message to her father, but he would like to know if he actually talked Rogers through asthma attacks. The voice in the back of his mind stirs just enough to assure him that he did — it has never lied to him. Not that he is aware, at least. It would make sense, considering the way the voice talked him through his panic attack, but —

But.

There are, within his mind, always caveats. Barnes will never know with any degree of certainty that the memories knocking around inside his head are true — not without some kind of outside verification. Acquiring the outside verification is difficult. It is invasive. Half the time, he does not trust the sources that might offer it.

Pressing the heels of his palms against his closed his eyes, the cold metal of his left causing him to see unevenly colored sparks of light against the backs of his eyelids, Barnes exhales roughly.

“So that’s it?”

Barnes drops his hands, opens his eyes, and looks toward the door. Wilson is standing across the hall from his room, arms empty of DVD boxes. His eyes are that strange white-blue, visible despite the distance separating them, because the skin of his face is so mottled and scarred.

“What?” Barnes asks.

“What’s going on in that head of yours, Sarge?”

“A lot,” Barnes replies, frowning. “Or nothing.”

“Or just enough.”

A quirked eyebrow would be an adequate response to that level of purposeful ambiguity, but Barnes is so damn _tired_. “Explain or go away,” he says.

“So there wasn’t some kinda, I dunno — some grand declaration, or fireworks, or whatever,” Wilson says, shrugging. “Unless you count the whole punching your face thing.” He hums noncommittally for a moment before he continues, “First time you’ve willingly — like _knowingly_ — gone near Captain America in decades, and he decks you. I mean, that’s not ideal, but it could’ve been worse.”

It could have, indeed, been worse. Barnes knows that, yes. It could also have been so much better. Barnes does not know why it was not _that_ instead of this mediocre, violent median. _That is untrue_ , he thinks, shaking his head slowly. _I know precisely why it was not that._ “Do you ever,” he asks, seemingly apropos of nothing, “Wish that you had not thrown off Weapon-X?”

“Nope,” Wilson answers without even a pause to consider the question. “But Weapon-X didn’t want to keep me on as their pet assassin, all metallic and pretty. I’m defective, Sarge. Always have been, always will be. Once they poked and prodded and experimented themselves out, I was defective _and disposable_. So.”

“Sometimes, I believe it would be easier to return to Hydra.”

The mercenary makes a face at that. “Yeah. It’d be a hell of a lot easier. Not having to think for yourself or, y’know, _live_.”

“I did not _feel_ , Wilson. _That_ was easier. Autonomy is all well and good, but what I have now is not _preferable_. I am not — I am not _right_.” That feels true. Barnes mulls over those words. _I am not right_. They feel true, and they settle something beneath his skin that has been roiling uncomfortably.

“Nobody’s _right_ ,” Wilson says, snorting. “But being an automaton isn’t the answer. Sure, you wouldn’t feel any of the bad stuff — the confusion and frustration and sadness or whatever — but you wouldn’t feel the good stuff, either.”

“I have a taco on my shoulder blade.”

The mercenary blinks at the sudden change of topic.

“It is yours,” Barnes offers with a shrug. “At least, I can think of no one else a taco would belong to.”

“Well,” Wilson says, not quite frowning. “This conversation’s taken a turn that’s decidedly too similar to the ‘I’m pregnant, Trevor’ revelation that should never, ever happen.”

“It has a sombrero. And a margarita,” Barnes continues.

“The taco?”

“The fish that is in the taco.”

Wilson starts laughing. It begins as a low, grating chuckle, then it moves on to chortles, and progresses into outright guffaws. As Barnes watches, the mercenary doubles over, hands braced at his knees, and laughs until he wheezes. “Oh my _God_ , you’ve got a festively drunk fish taco as a soulmark.”

“Yes,” Barnes says, one corner of his lips twitching just a little. “It is... ‘good stuff,’ I think.”

“Yeah, Sarge,” Wilson says, shaking his head a little. “That’s part of the good stuff.”

  

* * *

 

“This,” Tony says, marching up the stairs of the building to which Deadpool’s burner has led them, “Is just _embarrassing_.”

“I dunno, it’s kinda smart,” Clint offers.

“No. I mean, yes — but _no_ ,” Tony says, obviously following Jarvis’ instructions at the top of the stairs, since he takes an abrupt right without even slowing down. They walk down the hall, and stop in front of a door that looks just like every other door on the floor.

Clint opens his mouth to say something, but Tony’s already reaching for the handle. It turns easily and the billionaire scoffs. “It isn’t even _locked_. Like I said, this is just — ”

“ — embarrassing,” a rusty voice finishes as Tony steps over the threshold. He freezes, so Clint’s left out in the hallway. A familiar mixture of dread and resignation settles in his stomach.

“He’s got a gun on you, doesn’t he?” Clint asks, leaning forward to bang his forehead against the wall next to the door frame.

“You, too, since you just handily gave away the position of your _face_ ,” Tony says.

“Don’t shoot him, please. He hasn’t finished upgrading the rest of my gear yet,” Clint says. “We definitely didn’t come here to cause trouble.”

“Says you, Hawkguy. Stark was _born_ to cause trouble,” Deadpool replies. Tony’s shoulders relax, though, so Clint assumes the mercenary isn’t holding a gun on either of them any longer.

Before Tony can say something that will dig them both into an even deeper hole, Clint waves his hand over the billionaire’s head and announces, “I’m coming in!” A moment later and he’s there, in Deadpool’s apartment. “This is... not what I was expecting,” he offers, unabashedly scoping the place out as he closes the door behind himself.

“I keep my collection of severed limbs and shrunken heads at my other place,” Deadpool replies. Clint can’t tell if he’s joking or not.

“Huh,” Clint says. Looks like the place came pre-furnished, but it’s classy. Which he supposes makes sense, given it’s _literally_ across the street from Stark Tower — not exactly a cheap neighborhood.

“Are you here for a reason? Or are you just gettin’ your rocks off on how awesome you are, triangulating the location of an unencrypted burner?” Deadpool asks. He’s wearing the mask but he’s got a t-shirt on and a pair of loose sweatpants, so his arms are bare. Interestingly, only the right one is scarred.

“Where’s Barnes?” Tony asks, putting his phone in his pocket. He’s got the comm unit that links him to Jarvis in his ear, so it’s not like he’s off the grid, even though he’s not typing away at a screen.

“Sleeping,” Deadpool replies.

“Wait, he’s _here_?” Clint asks, unable to help himself.

“Why wouldn’t he be?” The mercenary asks, head tilting sideways.

“He _lives_ here?” Clint’s voice conveys his incredulity quite nicely.

“He _owns_ here,” Deadpool says, snorting.

“Christ, Steve is gonna _kill_ you,” Clint stage whispers, unable to keep the awe out of his expression as he glances at Tony.

“This,” Tony says, apparently trying to hold on to some of his dignity, “Is not my fault.”

“Before you two start slap-fighting, take it into the hall,” the mercenary interrupts them. When they just look at him and blink, he continues, “Took the Sarge forever to conk out. You wake him up, I’ll shoot you both on principle.”

Clint takes a step back and lets his eyes rove over what he can see of the apartment for a second time. He takes in Deadpool’s casual clothing and the stack of _Golden Girls_ DVDs he can see on the coffee table, the bowl of cereal on the end table and the set of knives sunk hilt-deep into the wall in an interestingly geometric pattern. “Holy shit, are you two fucking?”

“Ew,” Tony says.

“I don’t kiss and tell, Hawkguy,” the mercenary sing-songs, obviously amused if his tone is anything to go by.

“Oh no,” Tony whispers. “Steve really _is_ going to kill me.”

“If the Captain does not, I will.” Barnes speaks from the hallway and Clint’s eyes widen. A chill shoots up his spine so fast he reacts physically, shoulders going back as he straightens. The assassin’s not wearing a shirt and his hair’s kind of a wreck, but he’s unmistakably conscious, and more than capable of doing a good deal of damage to both Clint _and_ Tony despite the fact he helped them in Sokovia.

“Dammit,” Deadpool mutters. He pulls a gun out of nowhere and points it at Tony, the safety audibly clicking off.

Then something weird happens.

Clint’s not expecting it.

He knows Deadpool isn’t expecting it.

Maybe Barnes is.

“Fitting,” Tony says, voice weirdly hollow. Clint is, admittedly, a little distracted by the gun pointed at the billionaire’s head, but he can tell that something is off.

Barnes doesn’t say anything.

“You’d have the whole set,” Tony continues, and Clint realizes what’s weird with his voice. It’s gone kind of cold. He gives it a total of twenty seconds before one of the Iron Man suits hurtles through the apartment’s wall and destroys all the classy decor.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Clint breathes. He let himself forget. He really wishes he _hadn’t_ let himself forget.

Deadpool looks at him, but Clint just shakes his head. This is gonna have to play out however it plays out.

“Papa Stark. Mama Stark. Baby Stark. Though I guess I _was_ seventeen at the time. Not much of a baby then. Definitely not a baby now,” Tony says. He’s turned to face Barnes, and Clint can see that his whole torso is stiff.

Barnes’ eyes lose focus as he stares at Tony. “December 17, 1991.”

“Yeah,” Tony says. “You killed them.”

“He found Zola.”

“What?” Tony asks, soft and almost deadly.

“Zola, Arnim. Respected scientist of the Third Reich and Hydra. Valued doctor and Red Room handler. Head of Проект: Зимний Солдат,” Barnes replies, voice detached and almost mechanical, like he’s reciting this by rote.

“Shit, shit, _shit_ ,” Clint half-chants, voice low enough that he thinks no one else hears him. Deadpool cocks his head to the side, eyes never leaving the tableau before them, so Clint translates, “Project: Winter Soldier.”

“While performing routine maintenance on SHIELD’s backup servers, Stark, Howard A. W. uncovered an anomaly. Upon further investigation, he discovered and pinpointed Zola, Arnim’s active subroutines operating within the database,” Barnes continues.

Clint doesn’t know if he should be reaching for a weapon, makeshift though it would be, or if he should just stand as still as is humanly possible. Deadpool still has the gun trained on Tony, but it’s more than obvious that the mercenary isn’t the biggest threat in the room.

Barnes’ flesh hand moves to a scar that sits low on his stomach. It stretches in a wide arc from just below his navel to the bottom of his rib cage on the left. It ends there, an almost circular bit of scar tissue the obvious point where whatever went into him lodged against bone. If Clint didn’t know better, he’d say someone had attempted to gut Barnes, but the direction in which the wound was inflicted is all wrong for that.

Eyes narrowing as though he’s attempting to focus on something no one else can see, Barnes mutters, “I _knew_ him.”

The half of Tony’s face that Clint can see goes pale.

“The kill order… came through on October 7, 1991.”

“So, what?” Tony demands.

“But I _knew_ him.”

“So you waited a couple months to make up your mind about taking the shot?” Tony’s voice is flat, but Clint can see that his hands are trembling.

“The asset was nonfunctional immediately following the termination order’s issuance,” Barnes says.

Deadpool outright tenses at that. Clint decides this means the dissociation is a bad thing. Then again, he could’ve told the mercenary that, himself.

“What do you mean?” Tony asks, either oblivious to or willfully disregarding the warning implicit in Barnes’ diction.

“The asset malfunctioned during the initial mission briefing. Afterward, it was returned to the mental state customarily experienced directly following its emergence from cryostasis. Protocol states that the asset is to be reconditioned using a combination of neuro-electrical stimulation, intravenous neurological transmitters, and opiate-based narcotics to interrupt the transfer of electrical signals from the temporal lobe and the hippocampus. This has proven effective in preventing the formation of short-term memories which may prove detrimental to the asset’s operational integrity on future missions. Once the compromising neurological functions were rendered inert, the asset was placed in a medically induced coma to allow injuries sustained during the course of the malfunction to heal.”

“Stark,” Clint says, edging just a little closer to the man. “You get what he’s saying, right?”

“Yeah,” Tony says, voice hoarse.

Deadpool lowers the gun and looks at Barnes — or his masked face is turned that way, at least. Clint does _not_ mishear when the mercenary mutters, “I fucking _hate_ shady government organizations.”

“Once it was established that the asset would operate at optimal functionality, it was briefed on the mission — Stark, Howard A. W. Terminate with extreme prejudice. Stark, Maria C. Acceptable collateral damage. Stark, Anthony E. Heavily under the influence of Stane, Obadiah J., further action unnecessary. Unacceptable collateral damage.”

“What,” Tony begins. He stops, though, and has to clear his throat. Clint can practically _see_ Tony change the question he was going to ask. “What injuries did the — the asset sustain during the malfunction?”

Deadpool turns sharply, mask now pointed at Tony, and Clint watches  as the hand holding the gun twitches.

“The asset’s prosthesis was remotely neutralized, but sustained severe damage to its external, protective plating. The asset dislocated its right shoulder, sustained shearing fractures to its right humerus, shattered its right collarbone, suffered an abdominal laceration eight inches in length and four inches deep, and collapsed after a misjudged jump from a rooftop that resulted in a compound fracture to its left tibia and fibula. Compromised internal organs included — ”

“Stop,” Tony says. “Stop. I get the picture.” He doesn’t say anything else for a long moment, and the silence stretches awkwardly.

Finally, Deadpool barks, “Yo, Sarge!”

Barnes blinks, his expression partially clearing. He still looks vague around the eyes, though, and Clint can tell that the assassin is confused.

Tony, for his part, looks like he’s considering the pros and cons of letting Deadpool shoot him.

“Wilson?” Barnes says. It comes out like a question.

“Yeah, Sarge,” Deadpool replies.

“It is... what — ”

“Fall of 2015, Sarge. You’re in New York City. Manhattan.”

Clint wonders how often Deadpool has to say that to Barnes. He knows Tasha had to orient him every time he woke up from a nightmare after Loki. He can only imagine it’s a million times worse for Barnes, who’s suffered enough cognitive dissonance just from when he fell off the train to now. Toss in all the wake-ups and cryosleeps in between — the mindfuckery to which Hydra had to have subjected him, and Clint doesn’t want to think about how confused Barnes might be.

“You remember Sokovia?” Deadpool asks.

Barnes’ eyes cut to the side, and he seems to realize that the mercenary isn’t the only other person in the apartment. His shoulders tighten, but he doesn’t try to throttle anyone, so Clint counts it a win.

“Yes,” Barnes answers. “Mission parameters stated that any and all Hydra personnel encountered were to be eliminated with extreme prejudice. Captain America and his team were to be protected.”

“Right,” Deadpool says. “You did that.”

“We,” Barnes corrects, brow furrowing. “We did that.” Then he looks toward Tony and says, “Stark.”

“Yeah?” Tony says.

“I am... sorry.”

When the billionaire doesn’t immediately respond, Deadpool raises his handgun again, and points it at Tony’s head. “I warned you,” the mercenary says, “About waking him up.”

“Er,” Clint offers. That’s as eloquent as he’s getting.

“Stop,” Barnes says, gesturing with his metal hand. “It would be counterproductive.” There’s a pause as he seems to mull that statement over, but the assassin eventually finishes, “And I was thirsty, anyway.”

Deadpool’s gun disappears as quickly — and mysteriously — as it appeared. He’s got a second one on him somewhere, Clint knows, but he’ll be damned if he can figure out where either of them are. This is, by far, the strangest situation he’s been involved in recently.

The scars on Barnes’ chest are pretty epic, radiating outward from the metal at his shoulder to cover a good section of his pectoral muscle on the left. As he passes them on the way to the kitchen, Clint can see that they’re overlaid by a soulmark. Clint can’t find it within himself to feel weird checking it out. Same arm and, generally, same placement as Steve’s. Sort of. Makes sense. He just can’t actually figure out what he’s seeing in the context of it being _Steve’s_ soul making the mark.

There’s series of what looks like large, thin X’s about an inch from the last metal plate on Barnes’ shoulder, then a black line from one of the X’s that trails over the assassin’s collarbone and ends in a small spool near the dip at the hollow of Barnes’ throat. Squinting, Clint rewinds the pictures in his brain and realizes, after doing a quick double take, that the thin line is actually thread and there’s a needle stuck through one of the X’s. Unfortunately, the picture doesn’t miraculously make sense to him once Barnes is in the kitchen, back turned.

“Wait,” Clint says upon seeing the second soulmark. The word escapes his mouth on a breath of pure surprise. He couldn’t hope to stop it. Tony’s watching Barnes, but Deadpool’s face is turned toward Clint now.

Barnes looks over his shoulder, a glass of water tilted toward his mouth. “What.”

“Uh,” Clint manages. “That’s a taco.”

Silence follows that proclamation.

Finally, Barnes nods slowly, and says, “Yes. A fish taco.”

“I could use a margarita right about now,” Tony offers.

“Personally, I like the sombrero best. It’s jaunty,” Deadpool says.

That’s when Clint sees the widow’s sting on Barnes’ wrist. He smiles a little despite himself. “Tasha’s got a Soviet slug on her wrist. Tiny red star on it and everything.” He hasn't forgotten why he’s there, the whole purpose behind tracking Deadpool down to find Barnes. But if he thinks about it too much, it makes his brain go fuzzy at the edges with something very like anger. Anger isn’t going to get them what they need right now.

“Tasha,” Barnes says, his eyes narrowed again. He doesn’t seem to space out, though. “Romanoff, Natasha A.” He pauses, frowning outright now. “She is not real.”

Clint’s brows rise at that. “Uh, I beg to differ, seeing as she’s my soulmate and all.”

“No,” Barnes says, shaking his head slightly. “Romanova, Natalia Alianova is _real_. Romanoff, Natasha A. is a construct — a mask. A mask for _SHIELD_. But perhaps... not a mask for you.” He pauses again, then says, “I have three soulmarks.”

There are only two directions the conversation can take from here — horribly awkward (which will probably lead to everyone involved getting shot) or sharing time (which will probably still veer toward awkward, but at least no one will get shot — probably). Tony winds up tossing out the information that decides their course. “Pepper’s got Jarvis’ coding on her back. I’ve got the date she started as my PA on mine. Also, a lot of other dates that she thinks are significant. A _lot_. And Bruce’s formula is on my ribs.”

“Right, he got that little robot dude of yours,” Clint supplies, hoping that Tony’s non-incendiary contribution to the conversation means he’s not just biding his time before completely losing his shit at Barnes. Clint watches Deadpool look from him to Tony and back again before his masked face turns toward Barnes.

“Haven’t figured out what mine is from you,” the mercenary says.

Barnes drinks his glass of water while silently observed the byplay between the Avengers. Clint’s not sure what’s going through the assassin’s head, but he does know that he doesn’t ever want to hear Barnes reciting information about _the asset_ again. The dehumanization of it is bad enough when someone else is doing it, but for Barnes to talk about _himself_ that way. It kind of makes Clint want to go find the nearest Hydra agent just so he can strangle them with his bare hands — and he’s not even friends with Barnes. Or _soulmates_ with him.

In fact, he’s got a legit reason to be pretty pissed off at the assassin.

 _Jesus_ , Clint thinks, still watching Barnes. _It’s a good thing we didn’t bring Steve._ For a variety of reasons, it turns out.

Before anyone can say something into the quiet between comments, Deadpool pulls his shirt off over his head and says, “Kind of irritating, not knowing.”

Had Clint anticipated the mercenary losing his shirt, he probably would have expected something awful to be beneath, something like Deadpool’s right arm, only all over. If the rumors are true, the mercenary’s face is grotesque, covered in lumps and scars, huge pockmarks marring his cheeks and disfiguring his nose. His chest is... well. It’s not like he’s gonna be going into modeling _ever_ , but the scarring doesn’t spread all over from his arm. For the most part, it looks like he’s just got really bad road rash on his upper right side. When he turns to show Barnes his back, Clint can see that the scar tissue and lumps extend over his collarbone, the meat of his shoulder, and down along the wing of his shoulder blade. They completely obscure the section of skin where Barnes’ soulmark is located.

“Huh,” Clint says. It feels like he’s been saying that, or something very like it, a lot lately.

Barnes looks over Deadpool’s back, frowning slightly before he suggests, “A grouping of... stars?” He doesn’t look anywhere else, not toward Tony or Clint or the windows or the door — not keeping track of his sight lines and exits, making sure they’re open. The assassin is focused so thoroughly on the mercenary’s back that Clint wonders if it’s not his way of coping, for the moment, with the regression into which Tony unintentionally threw him.

Glancing back toward where the soulmark should be, Clint squints a little and tilts his head to the side. “Snowflakes,” he offers.

“Ah,” Barnes says, nodding slowly. He narrows his eyes at Deadpool’s back again and steps closer. “Stars at the center of snowflakes.” He glances up at the mercenary and says, “The stars are red.”

“Makes sense — probably why I can’t see ’em in the mirror,” Deadpool says with a nod. “The tumors make it weird to see colors when they’re on me. Also, I got a bad angle for looking.” He makes no move to put his shirt back on, though.The situation isn’t getting any less bizarre as it meanders on, especially considering the mercenary’s still wearing his mask.

Tony asks, “Are we — I mean, should me and Barton be taking our shirts off, too?”

Deadpool gives him an unimpressed look, somehow conveying the ridiculousness of that question even though Clint can’t _see his face_. “No, Stark. You’re not a super awesome assassin.”

Barnes suppresses a sigh, Clint can tell. He’s not sure the assassin is 100% with them cognitively, not after his earlier episode, as Barnes holds out his metal hand and curls his fingers into a fist. “Super awesome assassin solidarity,” he intones.

“Pound it!” Deadpool belts like he’s in the goddamn marines, reaching out to do just that with his own fist.

“I need to sit down,” Tony says.

It’s beyond difficult to reconcile Barnes as he is now — standing in his kitchen with an empty glass in one hand as he bumps his vibranium fist against the scarred knuckles of Deadpool’s right hand — with the man who stood in the doorway, face expressionless, and described the brutal injuries he received while attempting to break decades’ worth of programming so he could avoid killing a man he’d once considered a friend. For that matter, Clint can’t reconcile either of those versions of Barnes with the black-clad terror who triggered programming in Tasha that apparently went so deep not even SHIELD’s psychologists had managed to dig it out.

Figuring Barnes out is a thing that Clint isn’t sure anyone is going to be able to do — unless, of course, you’re another deranged assassin. Then, apparently, you get along with Barnes easy-peasy.

Barnes just arches an eyebrow as he puts his glass in the sink, watching as Tony sits down on the couch.

That’s when Clint realizes that the suit he’d expected hasn’t shown up. He wonders if Tony managed to silently put it off somehow, or if Jarvis is more actively monitoring the situation through Tony’s comm than Clint initially suspected. Probably a little from column A, a little from column B.

“So uh,” Clint begins, rubbing at the back of his neck — because he’s standing in the Winter Soldier’s apartment for a _reason_ , dammit, and they need to get this situation back on track. He’s just... not sure how to go about doing this. He’s about to deliver what amounts to the shovel talk to a man who can probably kill him with one pinkie — it wouldn’t even have to be the metal one. Clint’s pretty sure Barnes’ phalanges are all individually considered lethal weapons.

“Here’s the thing. Or, well. One of the things.” Pausing, he frowns and tries to think it over, tries to figure out a way to say what needs to be said that won’t end in another episode for Barnes. Clint sighs, gives up on making this come out well-said, and jumps in head first. “Whatever you said to Tasha in Sokovia — don’t say it again. Any of it. This is like your, I dunno — your freebie. Your ‘oops, I did it again’ slip that you can never repeat. Ever.”

Tony’s face is blank, kind of like he’s going into shock, but at Clint’s words the billionaire drops his face in one palm. Clint thinks he hears Tony muttering something about godawful pop culture references, but he wasn't even  _there_  when Barnes kicked that shit off with Tasha — when she and the goddamn Winter Soldier sliced through half a battalion of Hydra agents like hot knives through room temp butter. Tony doesn’t get to make stupid, over dramatic commentary — there’s gotta be a _rule_ about that somewhere.

Barnes’ expression turns shrewd as he focuses on Clint, and there’s a part of the archer’s brain that figures this is it — Sokovia didn’t do him in, but Barnes totally will. And then Tasha will resurrect him so she can kill him again, herself. It’s a small part, though. Thoughts about Barnes’ pinkie’s ability to end him aside, the rest of Clint watches the man with cold calculation. Hawkeye and the Winter Soldier, both exceptional operatives, stand less than three yards from one another, both wondering which of them will come out on top if they go at it head to head right now.

Deadpool sits down on the couch next to Tony and props his elbows on his knees, then his chin on his knuckles as he watches the standoff. When nothing happens immediately, the mercenary reaches one hand over to pat Tony’s shoulder, and speaks into the hush. “Hawkguy. You should totally take your shirt off.”

Barnes snorts. He actually rolls his eyes, effectively breaking the tension.

Clint’s gaze slides to the side. He develops an unexpected but intense appreciation for Deadpool’s particular brand of left field speculation, suggestion, and innuendo. The merc with a mouth makes it work for himself, there’s no doubt in Clint’s mind about that.

“Right,” he says, fighting the smirk that’s attempting to curl up the corners of his lips. Clint’s got another part to this talk that needs to happen. There’s a good chance this is the part that might actually get him killed. Or at least hurt enough that Tasha yells at him a lot — it’s suddenly a whole hell of a lot easier to see that the part of the conversation that was important to him... won’t be. Not to Barnes. “Okay. The other thing is this — something’s up with Cap. None of us like it, but none of us can fix it. I think that’s more your department.” He makes a vague, flapping kind of hand motion in Barnes’ general direction.

Barnes’ attention zeroes in on Clint again, but there’s a different quality to it now — a level of intensity which it previously lacked.

Then another thought occurs to Clint, and he wrinkles his nose. “I don’t think you and Deadpool bumping uglies is gonna help, though. So if that’s a thing that’s actually happening, we need to come up with a new plan. ASAP.”

“Explain,” the assassin says.

“Did that just move?” The question comes from Tony, and his tone is intrigued — which is definitely a step up from ‘about to pass out, leaving Clint effectively alone on this stupid not-really-a-mission.’

Clint glances over at his teammate to see him sitting forward, peering at the left side of Deadpool’s rib cage.

The mercenary raises his arm so he can peer down at whatever Tony’s looking at. “Hey, lookit that. It’s back to words.”

“Back to words?” Tony asks.

“Yeah, earlier this morning it was just a row of coffee cups on my shin. I figure they’re either on a caffeine bender, or they’re so caffeine deprived they’re fantasizing,” the mercenary says. “Y’know, fixated. On caffeine consumption.”

“It changes that much? Like, location-wise?” Tony asks.

“Yeah,” Deadpool says, shrugging. “Never been ‘you asshole’ before. But whoever they are, my soulmate really seems to like punctuation. That’s, like, at _least_ ten exclamation points.”

Clint is suddenly very conscious of the space in front of him. It was empty. Now it’s not. Now it’s full of looming, formerly-brainwashed Soviet-assassin. He carefully turns his face back toward Barnes, and raises his eyebrows.

“ _Explain_ ,” Barnes repeats, voice strained.

Clint tries to give Barnes a look that’s full of wordless significance. He fails spectacularly, so he opens his mouth and tries to be articulate again. “Look. _I’m_ not a time-displaced super soldier from World War II, okay? That’s a special, really ridiculously elite club. You and Cap are the only members. And until you showed up in DC, Steve thought he was the _only_ member.” Barnes frowns at him, and opens his mouth to say something, but Clint frowns right back, and leans forward just a little. “He woke up in 2011 and found out pretty much everybody he ever knew — except for his wartime sweetheart — was dead. And _she’s_ in her late nineties, so it’s not like she’s gonna last a whole lot longer.”

“You picking up what he’s laying down, Sarge?” Deadpool asks. Then, as though they’re performing somewhere and it’s an aside, he mutters, “I been _tryin_ ’ to explain this to him for _months_ ,” to Tony.

“He was alone,” Barnes says. “Now he is not.”

“Right. _Except_ ,” Clint says, pointing one finger vehemently at Barnes. He hasn’t actually worked up the nerve to poke the assassin properly, but he feels like it might happen one day. One day, far in the future. Whatever far-off day that winds up being, it is definitely not today. “Except _you’re_ chillin’ over here in your fancy, secret apartment, literally across the street from him, and you’ve said less than, I dunno, fifty words to one another in all the months you two’ve known about one another still being alive.”

Barnes’ frown turns into an outright scowl.

“Don’t gimme that look,” Clint says, finding it easier to react as he would with anyone else than he thinks he should — especially given who he’s talking to. “That’s all on you, bro. He’s been outta his head on you — like coming home with bruises and broken bones he could’ve avoided.”

“What.” The word is not a question as it leaves Barnes’ mouth. It’s completely flat, devoid of any and all inflection.

“Right?” Clint agrees, throwing his hands up in the air. “That’s what _everybody else_ keeps saying. But he’s been waitin’ on _you_ to get your shit together. And apparently you did. At least enough to kill a lot of Hydra asshats in a lot of pretty impressive ways for _months_.”

“Thanks,” Deadpool pipes up from the couch.

Clint waves his hand at the mercenary to try and get him to be quiet for thirty consecutive seconds. “And then you _stopped_. So you’re doing you, which is great. I get that you haven’t been able to do that much for the past, like, seventy years or whatever. Props, man. Kudos. But he’s over there, _across the street_ , basically by himself — even though most of us are trying to be decent human beings who keep him company. He doesn’t _want_ us, man. We’re not his _people_ the way you’re his people. What the _fuck_ , dude.”

“Wow,” Tony says, voice soft.

“Seriously,” Deadpool mutters. He and Tony are apparently bonding over this shared viewing experience.

Clint would be worried about that, he’s sure, except that Tony chooses that moment to say, “It’s like they’re communing on some sort of... I don’t know, some ephemeral, brainwashed-assassin level.”

“Shit, man,” Deadpool says. “That’s even better than ‘super awesome assassins.’ Way to be more elite than you were before, Sarge.” He sounds genuinely bummed.

That doesn’t stop both Clint and Barnes from turning to him and growling, “Shut _up_.”

Clint ends the command with ‘Deadpool.’ Barnes ends it with ‘Wilson.’ Maybe he and Barnes are more on-level than he originally thought. That’s slightly unnerving, considering Tony’s comment about potential brainwashed assassin singularities.

“I am not,” Barnes begins. He stops, though, eyes flicking up to meet Clint’s before he looks away. “I am not _his people_ ,” he says finally. The archer’s prepared to argue the point, but Barnes’ gaze cuts back to him, freezing whatever words might’ve spilled out of his mouth before they make it up his throat. “I am — I am _pieces_ of the person that he knew, left behind in the mind of someone he... he would never _want_ to know.

“For every shred of _his_ Barnes that exists in my head, there are twenty that make up the Winter Soldier — five that make up this Barnes, the one in front of you who likes fish tacos and cannot — cannot do _simple_ things because they trigger programming or memories of further trauma. The Winter Soldier remembers training Natalia to _slit a throat_ better than I remember _the Captain_. I am not the person he _needs_.” Barnes breaks off, shoving his flesh and blood hand through his hair, pulling a bit when he reaches the ends at the back. “I am _not_. But — I am trying. I am trying to _find_ that person in the mess that Hydra left behind.”

Scrubbing his palms through his own hair, Clint exhales roughly and nods. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Barnes gives him a skeptical look, obviously having expected more resistance. It reminds Clint uncannily of the expression Tasha gave him the first time they met, when he didn’t try to keep her from following through on the plan she had to deal with the tracksuit mafia. He supposes _now_ he knows where she picked up the look.

Now he knows where she learned... a lot of things.

“Yeah,” Clint said, nodding. “Okay. It’s still pretty shitty, leaving Cap hanging — but okay. I can work with it, at least.”

“I think he had a breakthrough,” Deadpool murmurs.

“We might have just witnessed history being made,” Tony replies, voice just as quiet as the mercenary’s.

Barnes’ jaw clenches. “I believe it would be advantageous to separate them.”

“It’s like a positive feedback loop,” Clint says, nodding. The tension goes out of the room at that.

Clint’s shoulders sag a little. Barnes leans back to rest one hip against the counter next to the sink. Tony slumps into the couch cushions. Deadpool starts pulling his shirt back on over his head.

Before things can get any more awkward than they already are, Barnes straightens. He rotates his metal arm, gears and other mechanical things Clint can’t even begin to understand whirring softly with the motion. Tony’s eyes latch onto it, but by some miracle of tact, he doesn’t say anything. Instead, the genius stays precisely where he is, and keeps his mouth shut.

“I will... not use what I taught Natalia to make her do things against her will again,” Barnes says, vibranium fingers flexing.

“Thanks,” Clint says, nodding. He rests his shoulders against the door behind him.

“I cannot promise anything more for the Captain,” Barnes says. Clint wonders what it means that the man can’t seem to call Steve by his given name. Maybe it’s a leftover piece of programming. Maybe it’s something else, something buried in Barnes’ psyche that nobody’ll be able to pry out. Maybe it’s just that he doesn’t think he deserves the familiarity it implies.

Whatever the reason, it makes Clint a little sad for them — for Steve and this person he used to know — especially when Barnes cranes his neck to take in Steve’s soulmark where it spans his shoulder and upper chest. If he wasn’t paying attention, Clint wouldn’t notice the way Barnes freezes.

“Wilson,” the assassin says.

Deadpool pauses, one arm and his head in his shirt, the other caught at an odd angle — _where_ is he keeping his guns? “Yeah, Sarge?”

“It’s different.”

“Huh?”

Clint’s eyes flicker over the soulmark again, and it hits him all at once. “Cross-stitching,” he says, tempted to pump his fist in the air.

“Huh,” Deadpool says, standing up. He gets his shirt on completely as he walks toward Barnes. “Wonder what _that_ means.”

“Does it go all the way around?”

“Yeah,” the mercenary answers. “X’s all the way around.”

“It wasn’t always like that?” Clint asks.

“Nah, it was a band — stitching in a circle around the arm,” Deadpool says.

Barnes’ expression shifts from faintly worried to utterly unreadable in a blink. Making an executive decision, Clint clears his throat. “C’mon, Tony. We’ve got... stuff.”

“Right,” Tony says, standing up and making his way toward the door. “Stuff. Important stuff.”

“Gear stuff,” Clint supplies. “You gotta finish upgrading my gear.”

“Yes, that. Very important,” Tony says, nodding. His eyes are wide as he reaches for the handle. Neither Deadpool nor Barnes seem to be paying them any attention, which Clint decides means they’re excused.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to Michael for giving this a once-over for me. :) Also, Tink, Stina, and Zip. (The usual suspects, these days.)
> 
> Music for this chapter included "Angel With A Shotgun" by The Cab and James Arthur's cover of "Impossible" (links forthcoming).
> 
> Thanks to everyone for leaving such encouraging comments. <3

James Buchanan Barnes had a soulmark.

James Buchanan Barnes had always _had_ a soulmark.

Bucky Barnes had a soulmark.

Bucky Barnes had _also_ always had a soulmark.

Out of all the fractured versions of himself in Barnes’ mind, those two share the most similarities.

Sergeant James B. Barnes of the 107th had a soulmark, too.

Sergeant James B. Barnes of the 107th had _also_ always had a soulmark, but he is different — a figure more inherently dark than the original and its derivative.

Sergeant James B. Barnes of the 107th kept secrets. He hoarded them — curled up around them to insulate and protect them from what he knew would come.

Sergeant James B. Barnes of the 107th was, by his own admission, a liar and a thief — he stole moments that, at the time, he did not believe were his to take. He made memories of them that he treasured — all of them are limned in rose-gold. They are sepia-tinted images that reminded him — that _still_ remind him — of happier, if not better, times.

Sergeant James B. Barnes of the 107th _lost_ his soulmark when he fell from a train in the Swiss Alps in late 1943, was found by Hydra’s Russian contingent, and held in an off-the-grid facility for months.

The Winter Soldier did not have a soulmark.

The Winter Soldier had never _had_ a soulmark.

The Winter Soldier did not question those statements — he did as he was told and, once he completed his missions, the handlers allowed him to sleep what they _believed_ to be the dreamless sleep of the cryogenically frozen.

The asset did not have a soulmark.

The asset had never _had_ a soulmark.

The asset, however, came to realize that this was an untruth, a convenient falsehood meant to keep him complacent.

Once upon a time, the asset had a name. The asset was James Buchanan Barnes — Bucky Barnes — Sergeant James B. Barnes of the 107th. Once upon a time, the asset had a soulmark that spoke of Steven Grant Rogers’ sheer, bloody-minded determination. Once upon a time, the asset — all his component parts — did not know that.

The concept of a soulmate was beyond the Winter Soldier. He did not have the capacity to understand a soul-to-soul connection. He would, however, have appreciated Rogers’... everything.

Barnes is none of those men.

And yet, he is all of them.

Barnes can tell someone — anyone — if they ask, the exact moment that Sergeant James B. Barnes of the 107th broke. _16:07:48 August 5, 1944._ The people in charge of his care and handling showed him newsreels leading up to the final assault on Johann Schmidt’s last major base of operations. They had inside information. They taunted him with it, with the knowledge that they knew something he did not.

They showed him the official documents, transcripts — and eventually an actual recording — of Rogers’ final conversation with the Strategic Scientific Reserve’s Agent Margaret “Peggy” Carter as _The Valkyrie_ went down. They gave him _evidence_.

Sergeant James B. Barnes of the 107th _allowed_ himself to break. He wanted — he _needed_ — to forget. Everything hurt. His world was colored by one type of pain followed immediately by another. He had, however, held out hope. Knowing that Rogers would never come for him was the thing that curled through his chest, gripped his heart where it beat behind his sternum, and squeezed it until he could no longer breathe. He retreated. He withdrew — because he realized there would never be an end. Hydra would make him into whatever they wanted, they would shape him into their Fist, and they would turn him loose on the world.

Sergeant James B. Barnes of the 107th, darker and harsher than the other versions of him lurking in Barnes’ mind, gave up.

Barnes has three soulmarks. Two of them are platonic. The last — the first — belongs to Rogers. And now that soulmark has changed. He knows that the change indicates some shift in Rogers, that it represents _something_ important. But he has no way of knowing _what_ it means. Days ago the stitches were neat and tight, so close together that they seemed like a solid line. Now, since the previous day at least, they are very pointedly stitches. Obvious. Barnes still has no idea what the symbolism means. It frustrates him, that this fundamental thing has changed _again_ and he has no way of understanding it now. He has no context for these changes.

He could get context, he knows, but his words from the previous day echo through his own mind and he pushes that thought away. He is not ready to speak with Rogers. Not again.

Opening his eyes, Barnes stares up at the mid-morning light striping the ceiling of his room. It is a new room. Obviously, they could not remain in the safe house across from Stark Tower. The location had been compromised.

Part of Barnes thinks that moving to this new safe house was pointless. Most of Barnes is too tired to think of anything beyond the conversation with Barton.

Shaking the programming is sometimes difficult. Certain thoughts — objectives — bring it roaring to the forefront of his mind. The memories surrounding particular missions impede his ability to ignore the conditioning’s directives. Barnes deduces that he fought the order to terminate Howard and Maria Stark when he could not truly understand disobeying his handlers. He knows that he tried. He knows that he paid for trying. He can name the injuries he sustained far and beyond the few Howard’s son allowed him to list, the measures that were taken to ensure he did not malfunction again.

But the _feelings_.

Barnes does not remember the feelings.

The first briefing is a blur of color and sound in his mind. He _knows_ he killed six men despite his many, varied restraints. He knows he escaped out of a window. He knows he calculated distance, trajectory, and speed when he jumped from the roof. He knows that he miscalculated and sustained further injuries, which made his attempt at escape completely futile.

He does not remember _feeling_ anything. It is as though the events are a timeline he read, something he memorized and could repeat verbatim when required. He _did_ repeat them when Howard’s son asked.

Barnes has not slept.

He is too close to the programming to sleep. If he sleeps, he might wake and not remember who he is now — it is not likely, but the potential for complete regression worries him. He rested, though. He _tried_ to rest.

Sitting up, he swings his legs over the side of the bed and considers his surroundings. He is glad, he thinks, that the Manhattan safe house was compromised. It seemed to distress Barton that he had been living across the street from Rogers without making contact. He assumes this means it will distress Rogers when he finds out. And of course he _will_ find out. Teammates are honest with one another.

It is important to Barnes that he not further distress Rogers.

Rogers is apparently quite thoroughly distressed already.

Barnes does not understand what about this situation is wrong, though others seem to comprehend it easily — even Wilson. But Barnes is not the person Rogers needs. He will not present himself to Rogers until he is that person again. The probability that he will negatively impact Rogers’ life, whether private or professional, with his presence at his current level of functionality is high — it is _so_ high.

Why everyone seems to think he should subject Rogers to his present mental and physical instability he cannot fathom.

So it is good that they are no longer positioned directly across the street from Rogers. That same, small part of him — the one that refused to be useful in Sokovia — dislikes the fact that they are no longer as close to Rogers as they had been. It is a locational closeness, he knows, and he recognizes that it is irrational to miss it. He could not touch Rogers from the apartment in Manhattan. In fact, while utilizing that safe house, he did not see Rogers at all — not once.

But, that small part of him contends, there was the _chance_ that he might see Rogers. And now that chance is gone.

Standing, Barnes dresses to blend in with the city’s modern crowds — the pedestrians and their eccentricities — before he walks into the main room of their new safe house. Wilson left him a note on the whiteboard propped on the kitchen counter. It says he has gone out to take a look at something for someone named Al. The note he leaves on the whiteboard for Wilson says he has gone out for tacos.

Barnes walks.

The city could swallow him whole and never notice. It is loud. It is a dull roar. It is bright. It is full of shadows. It is crowded. It is so empty its alleyways echo. It is elaborate. It is the simplest of repeating patterns. It is old. It is so new it takes his breath away. It is like never being alone, because the city never sleeps — there is always someone walking, talking, singing, laughing, crying. The city is beautiful because there is so much of her that is ragged around the edges. It makes the good parts stand out in stark relief. Sometimes, Barnes thinks he would not mind getting lost in her grimy alleys and her shops, her skyscrapers and her derelict factories.

He does not allow the city to swallow him, though he is tempted.

Barnes walks, and walks, and walks. He stops for tacos, contemplates chicken but buys fish, and eats them as he continues walking through the cool afternoon. Now the note he left Wilson is not a lie. Teammates are honest with one another.

The sun disappears behind clouds and buildings, smoke and the stench of millions of people living in close quarters.

He walks, and walks, and walks — until he stops in front of an apartment building in Bedford-Stuyvesant. His conversation from the previous day, the actual conversation with Barton, not the call-and-answer with Howard’s son, floats through his mind again. He owes Natalia the assurance he offered her soulmate.

The door to the apartment building is not locked when he tries it. This makes him frown. He does not worry overmuch about his personal safety, but this is a place which Natalia frequents. He does not like the thought that there are parts of it that are unsecured, even though he knows that she is more than capable of defending herself against petty criminals — he remembers training that capability into her.

Reaching the correct apartment on the top floor, Barnes pauses to consider the wisdom of this course of action. He does not think it _un_ wise. It is simply that he does not have anyone aside from Wilson who even partially understands the things going through his mind on any given day, and he thinks — he thinks perhaps Natalia will understand.

The part of him that is opinionated at the most inconvenient times — and silent when he wishes to know its opinions — whispers that he hopes she can _help_. Natalia, after all, has thrown off her own conditioning and created a life for herself outside the Red Room. Barnes does not think her life revolves around vengeance. He does not think she thinks of herself as disparate, fractured personalities utilizing the same brainspace.

Barnes knocks.

A dog barks.

“Sorry, Maria,” Barton calls from the other side of the door. Barnes does not think he checks to see who is knocking because he continues, “I know I said we’d be up at three but — ”

The door opens. Barton realizes that Barnes is in his hallway.

“Uh,” the archer says, bending as if out of habit to snag the collar of a medium sized, one-eyed golden retriever as it attempts to wriggle through his legs.

“I need to apologize,” Barnes says, his voice quiet. “To Natalia.”

“Yes,” Natalia says, her voice coming from behind Barton.

“Aw, Tasha,” Barton says as he steps back, gesturing Barnes into the apartment. When he raises an eyebrow at the archer, Barton says “Well, I’m not leaving her in here alone with you.”

“It’s okay, Clint,” Natalia says. She walks into view and her eyes are like green ice.

Barnes’ mind skips from instance to instance as he tries to find another example of the expression she is currently wearing — unconcealed wariness — being directed toward him. They stare at one another for moments that stretch and lengthen uncomfortably, Barnes watching her as she watches him. There are many things he could say, many things he could offer. But he thinks none of them are truly necessary for her the way they might be necessary for him.

Tilting his head to the side, Barnes asks, “What do you remember?”

“Less than you, I think,” she says.

“Or the same amount, but different pieces,” Barnes replies.

She nods slowly. “Perhaps.”

“Barton told you?”

“What you said yesterday?” She asks.

“Yes.”

“Obviously.”

Turning his eyes to the apartment at large, Barnes says, “I trained you from the ages of four to seven in observation, evasion, manipulation of people and situations, stealth maneuvers, basic hand-to-hand, and knife fighting. You excelled in each category, of course. One of the… other instructors — he took an interest in you after your first successful mission at age six and a half. I deemed his _interest_ detrimental to your continued... optimal — _healthy_ — to your continued _healthy_ development. It would have... harmed you. So I killed him. And three others. They removed me from the training program. I was interrogated — my interest in you was deemed too personal, too paternal. Per protocol, I was... reconditioned and returned to cryostasis. But I do not think the technician rendered the neurological reset correctly. I believe she was... sympathetic. I retained memories of that period of time post reset.”

Natalia’s brows have furrowed, her eyes losing focus as she looks inward. He assumes she is trying to corroborate what his story by comparing its details to the memories she possesses.

“I do not believe you remember this,” Barnes continues. “The next memories I have of you are from years later. You regarded me as a new instructor. I trained you from the ages of twelve to sixteen in Systema as well as various other advanced hand-to-hand martial arts and marksmanship. At this point, I was once again returned to cryostasis, and your training was taken over by Ivana Noskova.”

“Ivana,” Natalia says. “I remember her. I don’t remember you.” Barnes prepares to continue the litany of their intertwined history, what he can remember of it, but Natalia hisses quietly and raises a hand to her forehead. She places two fingers to her brow, then presses her palm against the furrow there. “Except... there are _moments_.” She winces, and her voice is impossibly young when she whispers, “ _But Vanya, I want to_ **_play_ ** _now_ ,” in Russian.

He replies in kind, the same way he always answered that demand when she was small and rambunctious, quick to laugh and quicker to smile. “ _But_ **_every_** _thing is a game, little spider! Come, tell me what you have seen this day. How many hats have passed us? How many coats were blue? How many ladies had red hair like you?_ ”

She exhales once, a quick, hard breath through her nose, and when she speaks again her voice is strained. “Everyday — everything was always a game.” Natalia’s hands are trembling now, but she does not try to hide them. “I was right. You taught me everything.”

“Almost,” Barnes replies. “Almost everything.” He watches her, taking in the way her shoulders have hunched. He wants to reach out to her, to offer comfort in the easy way he remembers from when she was young. In all the years the Red Room and Hydra kept him, she was the one thing they allowed him to have, the one small, precious thing that they let him to _nurture_. He would never be a father, but there was a part of him that _longed_ for that, sometimes. It was a part of him that he did not even know existed, could not have named at the time had he had the will. But they allowed him to shape her — then they took her away, and thought he would not remember.

Swallowing, Barnes continues, “I am sorry for Sokovia. It — it was not _programming_. I — they did not _implant_ the commands. That is simply how I trained you. Ballet and dancing. Forms and positions. Repetition.” He lets himself exhale. It shakes from his lungs, betraying his unsteadiness.

Barnes realizes this is not at _all_ like recalling the lead up to Howard and Maria Stark’s assassination for their son. That was fact after anesthetized fact, no emotional investment at all. This — this is _only_ emotion. “That is not how I would have had you remember me. It was — expedient. Given the situation — you were boxed in, I could not allow you to falter, and I could assist you in protecting your soulmate. I hoped the phrases were ingrained enough that you would respond automatically. I did not expect them to send you... elsewhere. To the place between programming and autonomous thought.”

Natalia nods slowly. She has not looked him in the eye, not since that first glance when she was wary and prepared for an attack or deception. He does not know what she remembers, whether it is different fragments of the events he has described for her now or if she recalls others. Perhaps she remembers these same events, but different outcomes. The Red Room was always very adept at regulating and directing the minds of its operatives. Whatever she remembers, she looks at him and her eyes are no longer quite so cold. “I need to know what you taught me — what you can make me do.”

Barnes nods in return, wondering if either the archer or Natalia herself understand that she could wield a very particular type of power over _him_ — if she wished. It would compete, he believes, with his drive to protect Rogers. _If_ she manipulated him a certain way — _if_ he allowed himself to be manipulated. “I will write down the drills,” he says. “If you would like, I could... work with you. To keep you from going elsewhere when you hear the phrases. It is _highly_ unlikely anyone else knows them. Those who might have are dead. I did not take part in training any subsequent Widow generations.”

She does not respond immediately.

Barnes does not expect an immediate response.

He can see the multitude of outcomes his suggestion might engender pass through her mind. She evaluates each of them, weighing them against whatever other factors she deems important. Barnes realizes that while he could likely make educated guesses about some of those factors, he does not know enough about her life — about _her_ — to assume with any certainty that his guesses would be correct.

“I think,” Natalia finally says, “That I would like that.” She frowns slightly, preempting any reply Barnes might have made and ensuring Barton does not interrupt her. “However, I would prefer we do this somewhere easily monitored. I would also like Clint to be present. And possibly another Avenger.”

Barnes considers this counteroffer carefully. He understands that Barton would be there to ensure her safety should Barnes prove duplicitous. He assumes the ‘other Avenger’ she wants to be present is Thor. Aside from Rogers, he is the only one who could stop Barnes without doing a significant amount of damage to their surroundings — or needing a suit that Barnes could theoretically dismantle given his arm is made of vibranium. However, she did not specify.

“Not your tower,” Barnes says. “And not Rogers.”

Natalia and Barton share a look. Barnes cannot interpret the meaning behind the brief twitch of his eyebrows and the tiny quirk of her lips. It is a language that is unique to them. Given time, Barnes might be able to read it — but what would be the point?

“Agreed,” she says, nodding once their silent conversation has come to an end.

Barnes nods and rattles off a string of digits. “Wilson assures me you will be able to reach me at that number.”

“Wilson?” She asks, brows rising.

“The mercenary.”

“Deadpool,” Barton supplies.

Natalia smiles. “You have a Wilson.”

Taking a step backward, Barnes cocks his head to the side. He answers her with a simple nod a moment later, though.

“So does Steve,” she says, her lips smiling even though he knows the look in her eyes is not quite amusement.

Barnes manages not to wince at the name, but the archer’s eyes flicker over him. He thinks he tensed his shoulders. He feels as though he has given himself away, some secret he had no idea he was trying to hide. Barnes makes himself relax. “ _Why did you let them Anglicize your name?_ ” He asks, switching to Russian. It is an unsophisticated change of subject. He does not know precisely when he began to care less about subterfuge than maintaining the few things that are his own, but. He cares far less about subterfuge than making sure neither the archer nor his former protege pursue a line of inquiry involving Rogers.

She snorts softly and does not bother responding in Russian. “SHIELD didn’t give me much of a choice.”

“ _May I call you Talia?_ ” He asks, the words falling from his mouth, still in Russian, despite her apparent refusal to reply in kind.

“ _May I call you Vanya?_ ” She returns. It is a challenge.

Barnes pauses to consider the question. He could ask her to call him Yasha, he supposes, since it relates more closely to his ‘real’ name — but that is not what she knew him by, when she was young. Making that request would defeat the purpose of the familiar diminutive, he thinks.

“ _If you like_ ,” he finally answers.

Her lips quirking, she replies, “ _Then yes. You may call me Talia._ ”

Barton makes a quiet noise — not quite dissent, not quite approval.

Natalia leans into the archer, speaking softly enough that even Barnes’ enhanced ears are unable to catch her words. Whatever she says, it causes a sly grin to spread over Barton’s lips, so Barnes is relatively certain he does not want to know.

Still, he knows he passed a test.

 

* * *

 

A couple weeks have passed since Barnes showed up on his doorstep, since Tasha agreed to spar with the deadliest assassin in the history of ever — or not quite spar. What they do is more like a call and response sorta thing. Barnes tells Tasha what he’s gonna say, how he’s gonna say it, and the reaction he thinks it’ll get from her. With the prep, she doesn’t leave herself behind as she does whatever the ingrained training has her doing — and it’s some beautiful stuff, that training. She’s always been graceful; she’s always moved with a sureness that most people lack. She wastes absolutely nothing, her movements entirely economical.

It’s still weird for Clint to realize that she learned all that from Barnes. He’s the reason she can shift from one stance to another so fluidly. He taught her how to hook her knees around someone’s neck and — using her own momentum to swing around — either internally decapitate them or just leave them unconscious, before landing on her feet. Still so very, _very_ weird. But watching the two of them together, especially as they get more comfortable with one another — that’s something Clint finds he genuinely enjoys. He doesn’t fight the way they fight. He likes his ranged combat best, and if he has to get up close and personal, he favors the brutal efficiency taught by the U.S. military.

Thor seems to enjoy watching the differing techniques they use. He hasn’t asked to join in yet, hasn’t suggested anybody spar with anybody else, but Clint can feel it coming. He can see it in the way the Asgardian’s eyes narrow after a particularly skillful execution of a form, twinkling a little like he’s replaying it in his mind and liking it just as much the second time.

Thor _admires_ Barnes. Clint thinks it’s because Barnes is an instructor, a teacher. He’s pretty sure guys like that are thought of highly in Asgard, which makes sense — and it’s not like they don’t all have vivid, daily examples of the guy’s skills when it comes to training others in martial arts. Tasha’s as good as she is — in part — because of Barnes.

So it’s been a couple weeks of Clint watching Barnes and Tasha settle into a routine of sorts, of holding up a wall opposite Thor as the two former Soviet assassins work through their many varied issues. He’s not entirely sure what Barnes is getting out of it, but Tasha’s feathers are a little bit less ruffled after every session. Maybe that _is_ what Barnes is getting out of it.

But no matter what he’s reaping from his sessions with Tasha, the other super soldier living somewhere in this equation’s not getting jack. Clint had hoped that after that conversation in the apartment across from the tower, Barnes would find himself a little faster than he’d been finding himself before. No such luck. Still, every little piece of himself that Barnes _does_ sort out is a microscopic step closer to some kind of reconciliation.

Probably.

Possibly.

Clint’s not one to count his eggs before they hatch, though. At least not when they’re emotionally stunted super soldier eggs full of PTSD. Which means that in an effort to non-hypocritically promote... something, he’s gone looking for Steve.

He finds Cap in the gym, which isn’t unexpected. Still, Clint watches him for a little while, trying to suss out the best angle from which to approach this situation. He’s not sure there’s a best angle, if he’s being honest. It’s kind of a clusterfuck all the way around. And when did Clint become the guy having all the potentially dangerous conversations with every single World War II-era super soldier in New York City, anyway? _Christ_.

Still, he’s done what he can from the Barnes side of things, which hasn’t helped as much as he hoped it would. It hasn’t made things _worse_ , but Barnes is working through his shit, and that’s only fair. He’s trying — Clint believes that. Which leaves him with a frustrated Captain America leading a team of superheroes in the middle of a series of operations meant to eliminate the dregs of Hydra’s European branch.

If Barnes is to be believed, the last of those bases are well on their way to being defunct, but there’s an entire South American branch of things that the Avengers should seriously consider looking into. Cue Captain America being awesome and wholesome with that shield of his.

Or... not so much.

They haven’t been on a mission in almost a month.

Everything’s fallen into a kind of pattern, and normally that’d be okay. Clint’s not one to complain about a lack of action, especially when it gives him time to personally handle maintenance requests in his Bed-Stuy building rather than having to contract them out. But this... it’s not inaction because everything’s hunky-dory. It’s inaction because Steve’s upset, but still halfway waiting for Barnes to turn up at the tower like a murder-y version of the cat from _Homeward Bound_.

Rubbing at the back of his neck, Clint shakes his head and then drops from the rafters to the mat near the door. “Cap,” he says, quirking an eyebrow at the other man as he takes a step forward.

“Barton,” Steve says, executing a textbook left jab, pivot, right uppercut, left hook, right hand combo. Clint steadies the bag as it swings toward him with the force of that last punch, frowning.

“Lookin’ a little frustrated there, Rogers,” he says, both brows raised now.

“Makes sense,” Steve says, rolling his shoulders before taking a breath and exhaling. He shakes out his hands, flexes his fingers hard enough to make his tendons stand out, and then begins unwrapping them. “Since I’m a little frustrated,” he finishes, jaw clenching.

“About that,” Clint says, stepping away from the bag. “Figured we could have a chat.”

“Nothing to chat about.”

Clint snorts. “That’s a bald-faced lie and I’m callin’ bullshit.”

“You can call anything you like,” Steve says, throwing his hand-wraps in his gym bag. “Doesn’t mean I’m talking to you.”

“That’s fine,” Clint nods, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “All you really gotta do is listen, anyway.”

“You gonna lecture me, Barton?”

“Nah,” Clint shakes his head. “Just gonna offer some perspective.”

“Perspective?”

“Somebody pointed out recently,” Clint says, glancing toward the windows, “that me and Barnes have more’n a few things in common.”

Steve pauses, shoulders tense, but he doesn’t turn back around to look at Clint.

“That same somebody made this joke, right? ’Bout me’n Barnes ‘communing’ on some kinda brainwashed assassin wavelength. Doesn’t bother me, but it got me thinkin’.”

“Yeah?” Steve asks, hands curling into fists.

“Yeah,” Clint says, quirking a smile Steve can’t see and wouldn’t understand if he could. The expression falls off his face a moment later as he continues, “Point is, I don’t get where Barnes is comin’ from all the time, but I can sorta see it a little. And I figure that’s more’n what you got goin’ for you, right?”

Finally turning around, the corners of his lips pinched downward, Steve nods. “Okay,” he says. “I’m listening.”

“He’s not who he was,” Clint says. “I know you know that, but maybe only on a... I dunno, an intellectual level. It’s like you look at him — like you _looked_ at him — and even though he’s got all these physical differences, you just sorta expected him to fall in line with the Bucky Barnes livin’ in your head. There’s not — I mean, you can’t help it, right? It’s not like you did that on purpose. It’s a... psychological thing.”

Steve’s brows rise.

“Look, mandatory SHIELD therapy post-Loki. Some of it stuck,” Clint mutters, rolling his eyes. “Point is, you can’t help that that’s what you expected any more’n he can help that that’s not who he is anymore, all right?”

When all he gets in response is another nod, Clint squares his shoulders and soldiers on.

“So _he_ knows he’s not the person you remember.”

“I don’t _actually_ expect — ”

“But you kinda _do_ expect him to do... whatever you’re subconsciously expecting. In your head. Like you expected him to not kill you on that helicarrier,” Clint says.

“I was _right_ about him on the — ”

Clint grimaces. “Cap, you weren’t right. You _wanted_ to be right. But the man you faced on the helicarrier wasn’t the man who pulled you outta the Potomac. _That_ guy was a foreign operative, brainwashed for decades, who managed to sorta-kinda-just-a-little-bit break his conditioning because you pushed him to that point — to the _breaking_ point.”

Frowning at the look on Steve’s face, Clint continues, “That’s not a... gentle way of doin’ things. I was lucky — Loki... had me for a little while. But he just.” He growls. There’s no other word for the sound that comes out of him right then. “He literally saw some... quality in me that he liked, that he figured he could use. So he forced his way into my head, pulled me out of it, and left... the base instincts in there. Not _me_. My hands on my bow, on my arrows, but not my _mind_ in there.

“I’m gonna guess Barnes went through something a whole hell of a lot worse. For starters, Hydra or the Red Room or whoever wound up with him — they didn’t wanna _keep_ much of anything that was _him_. They wanted a blank slate, and he just happened to be the person their version of the serum worked on. He started out a glorified science project; they didn’t _like_ anything about him. So he doesn’t have much in the way of ‘base instincts’ to work with.

“They also didn’t have a magic stick to yank him out of his own head. If he was even half the man you say he was, he fought that shit with everything he had. So my trauma’s nothin’ compared to his. For another thing, to hear him talk, he’s got a few different versions of himself runnin’ around up here.” Clint taps two fingers against his temple just to make himself clear. “I just got myself and memories of blue,” Clint finishes, burying his hands in his pockets again so he can push his knuckles into the seams.

“You talked to him about it?”

“Sorta,” Clint mutters.

“Sorta how?”

“Sorta... Tony tracked him down by followin’ Deadpool. It was kinda accidental.”

“But he _spoke_ with you.”

Eyes narrowing, Clint tosses a glance toward Steve to see what expression he’s got paired up with that tone. “After I told him you were being a borderline suicidal asshole, yeah.”

“You _what_?”

“You heard me,” Clint says, snorting. He turns to properly look out the window at the city around the tower. “Same sorta talk we had with you. Only more Barnes-oriented, since it was specifically... I dunno, specifically ‘save Steve’ and not so much ‘we’ll put you in superhero timeout.’”

“That... that makes no sense,” Steve says.

“Makes plenty of sense. Anyway, that’s what I said. Barnes was all of a sudden all up in my business.”

“He didn’t — ”

“Not like _that_ ,” Clint snorts again. He’s a little bit impressed with how much interrupting Steve’s letting him get away with. “Loomin’. He’s real good at loomin’.” Freeing one hand so he can wave it through the air like he’s wiping condensation off a mirror, he continues, “He’s not straight in his own head, nothin’s organized — least, I think that’s what he was sayin’. And I think you gotta see what he’s seein’ — he was what they made him for a lot longer than he was who he was ’fore they had him. That’s what I’m tellin’ you, okay? Barnes is this... this confused jumble of thinkin’ and feelin’ and thinkin’ different.”

“So I should what? Just sit back and... wait for him to do whatever?”

“Yeah,” Clint says, ignoring Steve’s incredulous face. “Look, Cap. Barnes... like I said, he’s _tryin_ ’ to get himself figured out. That’s what he told me. And you tryin’ to force things isn’t gonna help, ’cause it just makes him feel like he’s failin’ since he’s not doin’ it fast enough — fast as the him in your head would’ve been able to do it.”

“But I should just — what? He’s talking to everyone _but_ me.”

Catching Steve’s eye, Clint said, “He told me he wasn’t who you _needed_ right now. But he was tryin’ to _become_ that person.” He lets that sink in for a moment, just long enough for Steve to work up to a really _stricken_ face, and then he says, “So _he_ thinks he’s not good enough. Or whatever — whatever the ridiculous, super soldier assassin equivalent of ‘not good enough’ is. That’s what he’s thinkin’. Let it ride, Cap. Just — let Barnes come to you.”

Steve turns around, raising his hands to push his fingers through his hair, and Clint watches as his knuckles whiten. His shoulders are tense enough that Clint’s very briefly worried about the integrity of Steve’s shirt. The fabric holds, though, as the other man paces away and, having said what he came here to say, Clint clears his throat. “Okay, well,” he says. “Good talk. I’m just gonna — ”

“Clint,” Steve says, still facing the wall.

“Yeah, Cap?”

The silence hangs between them, almost uncomfortable, and Clint’s not sure what to expect when the other man half-turns back toward him. His jaw clenched hard enough that Clint can see it flex, Steve asks, “How is he?”

There’re a lot of ways Clint could answer that, and his initial impulse is to be a smartass about it. But Steve drops his hands, and Clint finds himself wincing a little. “He’s... okay.”

“Okay?”

“Takin’ care of himself, it seems like.”

Steve takes this slow breath, chest moving as his lungs expand, and then says, “Eating?”

“Uh... a lot of... tacos, I think?”

“Tacos?”

“I’m gonna guess fish tacos,” Clint says, smirking a little.

“ _Fish_ tacos?”

“Yeah, that’s a thing.”

“How do you know it’s a thing?”

“He’s got this...” Clint wiggles the fingers of his left hand a little aimlessly, then turns around and wiggles them again at the spot on his back where Barnes’ taco is. “Soulmark.”

Steve blinks.

“Yeah,” Clint says, nodding agreement as he straightens. “That’s what I thought. But it’s a fish in a taco wearin’ a hat and drinkin’ somethin’ — probably alcoholic. Tony thinks it’s a margarita.”

“ _That’s_ Bucky’s soulmark?”

“I mean, one of ’em. He’s got one of Tasha’s little stinger things on his wrist.”

“Who...” Steve trails off, though, lips tightening. “Deadpool?”

“That’d be my guess, yeah,” Clint says, nodding.

Steve scrubs his hands through his hair again. It stands on end, looking a little like somebody thought electrocuting Captain America would be an awesome idea. It takes him a minute, but then he lets his hands drop to his sides. “How’s Nat... handling everything?”

“She’s doin’ okay, actually,” Clint says. “I mean, took some adjustin’ to at first. She was all...” He waves his hand around again. “Paranoid. Thought she was gonna stab me once or twice when I walked too quiet. But since Barnes’s been goin’ over everything he remembers about her trainin’, she’s evened out. Pretty sure they were doin’ some kinda contest to see who could out-deadpan who the other day.”

The tiniest of tiny, would-be smiles quirks up the corners of Steve’s lips. It’s there and gone a in a flash. “You two — you and Natasha — are... not _always_ together.”

“Nah, not always,” Clint says, shaking his head.

“But you’re together a lot.”

“I mean, now? Yeah. A lot more’n we were before. Like, if you’re talkin’ missions and all that. SHIELD had us goin’ in opposite directions a lotta the time. Eh... maybe not opposite, but workin’ the same thing from different angles. Our skillsets overlap, but she’s more ‘infil and get people to give her what she wants.’ I’m more ‘wait patiently for somebody to do the thing I need ’em to do so I can take a real pretty shot.’ This whole Avengers thing, it’s been nice. When I’m not gettin’ the shit beat outta me, anyway,” Clint says, tilting his head as he watches Steve. “Why?”

“Just. You two seem good. Like... you’ve got the whole soulmate thing really figured out,” Steve says.

Brows rising, Clint says, “I mean, sure. I guess. As much as anybody’s ever got it figured out. It’s not a magic thing that lets me read her mind or whatever. She’s still a closed book, when she wants to be. But it’s a... I dunno. It’s a comfort. She’s there. What’s on my skin’s there. _She’s_ on my skin. Under it, y’know? Can’t get rid of her, even if I wanna. Wouldn’t ever wanna.” He’s not sure if what he’s saying is helping or not, but a thought occurs to him and, in the end, Clint’s not the sort to keep something that might help a friend from them. Tugging his shirt up and over his head, he gestures toward the faint webbing on his front. “Not quite what it used to be, but. She’s there. She’s with me wherever I go. And I’m with her. So even when SHIELD had us on different missions, she was still here. I was still there. See?”

Steve’s right hand moves unconsciously toward his left arm, rubbing his palm in slow circles over his cloth-covered soulmark. “Yeah, I think I do,” he says, shaking his head a little. “We had that, sort of. Before the war. It wasn’t... it wasn’t what you two have. I mean, I thought... I thought we might be, but Buck was so sure that we weren’t. And it was... I mean, it was dangerous back then, anyway. Neither of our marks was as dynamic as some of the people we knew. Didn’t want it getting out that your... y’know, your _big_ soulmate was another man, right? Not safe. But... we were close, the way you two are. It was... enough.”

Clint’s not sure whether he should actually be hearing all this or not. It’s one thing to hand over his own information, hope that it’ll maybe help Steve get everything in his head back in order or whatever. It’s another thing entirely to start getting return information, especially when it’s about things like... like how fucking _stupid_ people were in the thirties and forties. He opens his mouth to say something along those lines, maybe something about how it took a while, but most people have their heads outta their asses now, but Steve’s still talking.

“Then there was the war and I just thought... afterward? We’d get it all figured out after. Pretty big assumption, huh? That we’d both make it back. But y’know? How couldn’t we?” Steve’s still rubbing those little circles over his soulmark, and the absent-minded movement seems to soothe him. “Just kills me, is all,” he finally says, shaking his head again. “Just kills me, how it was right there all along. And I didn’t know it. Or... I didn’t have the guts to push it.”

“Can’t push things like that, though,” Clint offers when it becomes apparent that Steve’s not going to continue. “At least, not some things. Not the important ones.”

“Guess not,” Steve says. “Not everybody’s soulmate decides to set up shop in their apartment before they get home, fix all their problems.”

“She didn’t _set up shop_ ,” Clint says, rolling his eyes. “She was waitin’ for me on the kitchen counter. Though she _did_ handle the tracksuit mafia, a fact I’m _very_ grateful for.”

Steve actually chuckles a little, the sound soft and dry — disused. “It’d be nice, though. To have that back. Something a little like it. A little like how we were before the war. I don’t... I don’t have _expectations_ or anything. It’s not like I...” Whatever it’s not like, though, Steve seems to be having trouble putting it to words. “I don’t expect it to be all... kittens and rainbows or whatever. Hearts and declarations of undying love. That’s not... I mean, that’s the cliche stuff... I just need him to be... okay. Which he... is. And that. That should be enough.”

Clint wonders if he’s meant to get the question that those words leave hanging in the air or not. _That should be enough — so why isn’t it?_

Then Steve blinks, seemingly reorients his thoughts, and asks, “Thor’s keeping the peace?”

“Thor’s good with both of ’em, yeah. Treats Barnes with respect. Personally, I think he wants to go a few rounds with him, himself. See how they measure up. But he’s too... I dunno, he’s smart enough to know now’s not the best time and all. It’ll happen at some point, though,” Clint says, smiling now. “I’ll bet you five bucks right here, right now that, when they throw down, you’re there to see it. All in person and everything.”

Expression morphing from amusement to disbelief to a strange blend of the two, Steve offers Clint his hand. “All right, you’re on.”

They shake on it, Clint secure in the knowledge that he’ll be five dollars richer at some point in the future. “I gotta go see a guy about a dog,” he says, tilting his head toward the door before he starts walking toward it.

“Clint?”

Looking over his shoulder as he pulls his shirt back on, Clint raises his eyebrows.

“Thanks.”

“No problem, Cap.” There’s a short pause during which Clint considers whether or not to pass along the information he has, but he figures it can’t hurt anything at this point. “I called Wilson. He said he’d be here in a day or two. Get you straightened out.”

Whatever Steve’s response to that might be, Clint doesn’t hear it. The door to the gym closes behind him with a solid thunk and he makes his way toward the apartment he shares with Tasha.

Jesus _fuck_ , super soldiers are so goddamn high maintenance.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, many thanks go out to Michael, Zip, and Tink for looking this over for me. Also, to Frito for cheering me on with Wade's bit at the end. :) Tink picked the song that is Darcy's ringtone on Steve's phone, so credit for that awesomeness goes to her. 
> 
> Oh! And because I keep forgetting, [here](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v157/vermilionshadows/fish%20taco_zpsaydhfdbm.jpg) is the image that's the basis for Bucky's Wade-soulmark. :D
> 
> As always, leave me comments - they give me life! If you see anything I've forgotten to warn for, let me know. <3

“You said that you didn’t train any Widows after me,” Natalia says, tossing a towel at Barnes’ head as they finish their latest session. After weeks of methodically working through her early training, he is confident that she will be prepared for anyone who might attempt to use it against her. He had hoped, when they began these exercises, that she would be able to help him with his own reintegration efforts.

She has.

Explaining her assistance to Wilson proved unnecessary — the mercenary seems to intuit Barnes’ requirements with very little effort on either of their parts. It is a relief, not having to devise a suitable justification for his every action. Despite the fact that they are no longer actively pursuing Hydra outposts and bases to destroy, Wilson maintains a consistent presence in Barnes’ day-to-day routine — a point of reference, strategic continuity. He understands combating and undermining blackbox government organizations, but not the cracks and crevasses that Barnes’ particular blackbox government organization left in his mind. They are difficult to navigate, easy to fall into if he is not careful, difficult to climb out of should he slip. There is a significant difference between experimentation and programming.

When Rogers forcibly broke through the first layer of conditioning, everything in Barnes’ mind was a smooth slope downward — a testament to the dedication and thoroughness of his Red Room, KGB, and Hydra handlers throughout the seventy years during which they controlled him. As days passed and deeper layers fractured, the fissures formed. The asset was a blank slate, an empty vessel waiting to be filled with purpose — with a mission; Barnes is an amalgamation of so many different versions of one man that he often finds it difficult to differentiate between them.

On one hand, Natalia tells him this is progress — the blunting of the jagged mental edges that separate each iteration of himself means that he is healing. On the other, it can be unnerving to find that his reactions to various situations are the same, regardless of when he originally experienced them.

“That is correct,” Barnes says, nodding as he wipes sweat from his face. “I did not take part in the selection or training of any Widow candidates after my... attachment to you was discovered and deemed unacceptable.”

“What about Belova?”

He smirks despite himself. “Your second, I learned, in all things. But I did not train her. She came to the program after you.” His eyes lose focus for a moment as he dredges through memories of the time between each cryofreeze. They come more easily now, less jumbled and confusing. “She took center stage after your defection, but she never managed to step out of your shadow.” He pauses before he reaffirms, “I did not train her.” Eyes narrowing, Barnes frowns. “She is off the grid now.”

“Yes. For five or six years.”

“She tried to kill me.”

Silence hangs in the gym for a long moment, and Barnes knows the others are startled. Perhaps Natalia less so than Barton and Thor. “Why?” She asks.

“There was a mission,” he replies, still frowning. “Ah,” he says, face clearing as the pieces click into place. Sometimes the memories refuse to line up correctly. Sometimes there is too much time between one or the other to make sense of them. But this, at least, he remembers chronologically. “Yes. Odessa.” A dark smile flits over his face.

It is Barton’s turn to frown.

Barnes remembers watching the archer’s then-inexplicable exit from the SHIELD jet, the speed with which he scrambled to the complicated woman’s side. Even then she was so very complicated — a world of complication contained within five feet, three inches of exceedingly competent redhead. It would have been easy to kill Barton, had Barnes himself not been otherwise engaged.

But neither Natalia nor Barton were the mission.

“She was to observe,” Barnes explains before either of them can comment. “I do not know why. Perhaps there was a deeper game afoot at the time than I realized.” Shaking his head to indicate that this possibility is not important, he continues, “The nuclear engineer was the mission.” His voice has gone distant, almost hollow with this recitation. “I waited for the shot, for the window.” Barton nods, eyes narrowed. Barnes recalls that he is a sniper, familiar with modern long-range weaponry as well as his bows and arrows. “She shot out the front tire of the car before my window opened.”

Barton’s eyes flick down to watch the movement of Barnes’ flesh and blood hand as it rubs absently at a long-healed wound on his chest. It is probable the other man remembers the small, puckered scar there, the product of a bullet wound followed by sloppy medical treatment. “Then she shot me. She assumed the engineer was dead, believing no one could survive the fall from the cliff. I must have been her secondary target — that has never been confirmed in my presence. Two missions accomplished in less than sixty seconds.”

Forcing his hand to drop to his side, Barnes continues, “She underestimated both of us. I dislocated her...  shoulder.” He tries to work through the details as the whole of the mission plays out in his mind, one event slipping smoothly into the next — no cracks or sharp edges. “Broke at least two bones in her wrist. I damaged one of her legs and disarmed her. By that point, you had pulled the engineer from the wreckage — ”

“I grabbed him and jumped before the car went over. We rolled off, but I had enough purchase to keep us from following the car all the way down,” Natalia supplies.

Barnes nods. “The engineer was the mission.” His expression flickers, shifting from pain to regret to the cold detachment of the Winter Soldier before settling back into a neutral blank. “I — I had to — but I could not.” He pauses then, the words difficult to drag from his throat. The memories are there, the feeling of wrongness in them, the desperate need to obey the directive conflicting with some other, instinctive drive. “ _You_ were not the mission — you were _not_. But he — he — ” Barnes exhales harshly, fists clenching.

There is pressure on his shoulder, the weak one. It is not painful pressure. Barnes focuses on it, glances at its source. Natalia’s hand is on his shoulder. That — that makes sense. In the context of this situation — the difficulty he is physically exhibiting in conjunction with the the probability that she she has been compromised by her emotional attachment to him — Natalia’s reaction is logical.

Barnes frowns once more, but clears his throat and makes himself continue when she removes her hand. “He _was_ the mission. He had to die.” Barnes vividly recalls yelling that at Rogers as he beat the other man with his metal fist — telling him that _Rogers_ was the mission. He makes himself look at Natalia as he finishes, “I _had_ to complete the mission, but I could _not_ kill _you_. With Belova neutralized, I took the best shot available, given my window had closed. It accomplished the mission within my own... personal parameters.”

Barton leans forward into Natalia’s space. “That, Tasha, is a bet _I_ just won.”

Barnes’ brows rise, silently — emphatically — demanding elaboration.

The archer shrugs. “You didn’t kill her in Odessa. You didn’t kill her in DC. You’re _you_. You could’ve — probably should’ve — killed her both times.” When Barnes makes no comment, Barton continues, “Hey, I’m _really_ glad you didn’t, I’m just sayin’. Would’ve been easy. You didn’t do it — that was fishy. Had to be a reason. I called it.”

Barnes snorts.

“You didn’t kill Belova?” Natalia asks, ignoring her soulmate’s gloating as she zeroes in on the pertinent information.

“I did not,” Barnes replies. “She was not the mission. I radioed for an emergent extraction. The exfil team arrived. We were loaded onto separate transport units. They did not inform me of her whereabouts or condition post-mission or during debrief prior to physical stabilization, reconditioning, and cryostasis.”

Natalia says nothing, instead considering Barnes carefully before pulling a mobile phone from her pocket. Putting it on speaker so that everyone in the gym can follow the conversation, she waits for someone to answer.

“Good afternoon, Agent Romanoff. I trust you’re enjoying your time away from the tower?”

“Jarvis,” she says, eyes never leaving Barnes’. “Please flag any files you find that mention Yelena Belova specifically, codename Black Widow, as you continue to sort through the SHIELD data dump.”

“Of course. Would you like me to send you everything the query returns for ‘Codename: Black Widow’?”

“Yes. I’ll sort through the results to eliminate my own activity.”

“Very good, Agent Romanoff.”

“Thank you, Jarvis,” Natalia says.

“I assure you, it’s my pleasure,” Jarvis replies. “May I be of any further assistance?”

“No, thank you,” Natalia replies, ending the call. Cocking her head to the side, she directs her next question to Barnes. “How’s your rehabilitation progressing?”

Barnes frowns, deciding to pursue the question of Jarvis’ identity at a later time. “It progresses.”

“Yes, but how well?”

Barnes glances toward the blacked out window of the gym. “James Buchanan Barnes, Bucky Barnes, James B. Barnes of the 107th, the Winter Soldier, the asset...” He shrugs. “Pieces of them fit with one another, though they do not often properly interlock.” Almost like shattered mosaics; the fragments are colorful, vibrant sometimes, but they do not always fit together neatly to form a cohesive picture. There are chips and shards that are missing, lost to the corrective electrotherapy, the cocktail of neurological inhibitors injected into his system to keep him compliant, or simply to the natural deterioration of the human mind over decades.

Lining the larger pieces up in the wrong order can be exceedingly confusing, particularly given his time in cryostasis and the gaps in his knowledge that it leaves. How can he account for the lost time? How can he merge the memories from the 1960’s with those from the 1990’s so that they make any kind of sense?

Barnes is unsure, but he feels no panic.

“There was never any need to give you false memories,” Natalia says.

This turn in the conversation has caught and held Thor’s attention in a way that the discussion regarding Belova did not. The Asgardian’s brows draw down, a line forming between them, but he says nothing.

“No,” Barnes replies. “Not false memories. They implanted information. Geopolitical summaries. Languages. Mission directives.”

“Skills?” Barton asks, seemingly despite himself. He clamps his mouth shut at a glance from Natalia.

“Skills... it is impossible to implant muscle memory,” Barnes says. “Disassembling a rifle, reassembling it, sharpening knives, cleaning handguns, breaking a target’s neck or slitting their throat. These are not things that can simply be... inserted along with intelligence concerning world developments. Hands fumble unfamiliar motions. It is inefficient. Easier to thaw me and train me on each new weapon — to update my hand-to-hand techniques, incorporate more modern martial arts. Failure was never an option.”

“You’re having difficulty reconciling the different sets of memories?” Natalia asks, her head still tilted to the side. Her eyes are sharp, but not unkind. Not wary.

“Sometimes I find they are _too_ different. It makes reconciliation difficult, yes. Less so, now than previously.” Wilson has not had to recall Barnes’ attention to the present in several weeks.

Natalia continues to watch him, almost as though she expects him to make some sort of breakthrough. Barnes has no epiphanies to offer her but hopes she takes something other than disappointment from this conversation.

“Consider,” she says, “That each set of memories can be taken separately — or they could be taken together. A... patchwork quilt. You’re familiar with the concept?”

“Disparate pieces making up a whole,” Barnes replies.

“Yes.”

He frowns as he mulls over this suggestion.

“Barnes,” Thor says, his voice grave in the way that it always is. Sincerity sloughs off the so-called god, almost like he molts it. Do the people around him pick it up after he sheds it, like snake skins? “Your memories — view them through one pair of eyes, one person’s perceptions. You, as you are now. The chronology, if you will, matters little when you examine each event from your present vantage. They are, all of them, parts of your history — only you can assign them any level of significance in your life now.”

“You got, like, voices in your head?” Barton asks.

Barnes raises an unimpressed brow, but his expression freezes a moment later. “Define ‘voices,’” he says.

Barton looks worried for a moment, but he answers. “Like, different voices. I dunno. Tellin’ you to do stuff.”

“To breathe,” Barnes replies.

“What, like inhale-exhale?” Barton’s brows rise.

“Initially,” Barnes says. “Modern psychology suggests one attempt breathing techniques to combat panic attacks and assist in coping with emotionally charged situations.”

“There’s a voice in your head tellin’ you to do breathin’ exercises?”

“Sometimes.”

Natalia’s lips twitch. The motion is faint, but he would not have see it had she not wished him to. “I’ve heard,” she says, “That you used to help a certain mutual acquaintance of ours with asthma attacks.”

“The asthma cigarettes only worked sometimes,” Barnes says. “And were not always available.” Then he shrugs. “I believe that the voice is me.”

“This voice is helpful, then,” Thor says, nodding his approval. “There are others?”

“Not distinct voices. More like... knowledge. Muscle memory that takes over when I scout locations or encounter hostile operatives with training that differs significantly from typical Hydra techniques,” Barnes says.

“You been encounterin’ a lotta those lately?” Barton asks, speaking over whatever Thor might have said.

“No,” Barnes answers.

“Well, that’s all right, then,” Barton says.

Natalia shakes her head at him but says nothing more.

Thor clears his throat. “That is heartening,” he says. “With regards to your memories. It pleases me to witness this success, Sergeant.”

Barnes is unsure of the reaction this declaration is intended to evoke, so he simply nods his agreement as he finishes toweling off. He departs, agreeing to meet with the group in three days, as is usual. When he reaches the new safe house, he finds Wilson in the kitchen making pancakes.

“Sarge, you gotta see this,” the mercenary says, obviously excited.

Walking into the kitchen, Barnes looks over the stack of pancakes on a plate beside Wilson, then gives the man an unimpressed look. “What.”

“I found this thing,” Wilson says. “It’s on the internet — on YouTube!”

“What.”

“This dude, he shows you how to make stuff on your pancakes!”

Barnes refuses to respond, which earns him a wounded look from the mercenary.

“Sarge, _c’mon_ ,” he wheedles. “This is epic!”

“That.” Barnes frowns at the pancakes. “That is a stack of shields.”

“I _know_ ,” Wilson says, practically swooning. “Faces are too complex for me right now. I’m still just a baby picture-in-pancake-batter-maker, but I figure I’ll work up to it.”

“You intend to work up to making Rogers’ face in pancake batter.” It is not a question. It is the only logical progression from the shields.

“ _Yes_.”

Rubbing two fingers against the line forming between his brows, Barnes asks, “Why?”

“So I can _impress_ him.”

“I doubt seeing his face on a pancake will impress him.”

Wilson looks crestfallen, his misshapen lips pulling down at the corners.

Sighing, Barnes pats the mercenary on the shoulder. “I could be wrong.”

“Yeah?”

Barnes is certain Wilson does not actually believe him. “It is highly unlikely that I would accurately remember Rogers’ pancake preferences. Perhaps vanity has gotten the better of him in in these modern times and he now enjoys looking at his face on all of his food before eating it.”

Wilson blinks slowly before he narrows his ice-blue eyes and says, “That. That was a joke, wasn’t it?”

“I have no idea what you mean.” As a tactical evasion, the ploy is weak, but Barnes manages to make his escape while the mercenary attempts to save the pancake shield currently in the pan.

It occurs to Barnes as he turns on the hot water in the shower that he does not actually remember Rogers’ pancake preferences. He can make an educated guess about what the man’s reaction to seeing his face on a pancake would be, but he has no memory of Rogers eating one. Did they not _have_ pancakes, in the time before the fall?

 _Too expensive_ , the voice that is him but not — the him from before the fall — enunciates, which startles Barnes. This could be part of the positive reintegration of memories he should be happy to experience.

 _Yes?_ He asks, narrowing his eyes at his reflection in the bathroom’s mirror. Steam drifts out of the shower and begins to creep over the glass.

_Eggs, milk, butter, flour, syrup._

Swiping his flesh-and-blood palm across the mirror, Barnes frowns. “Self.” The eyes, the nose, the cleft chin, the cheekbones, the mouth. “A person’s essential being that distinguishes them from others, especially considered as the object of introspection or reflexive action.” That is the problem, though. “Introspection. The examination or observation of one’s own mental and emotional processes. Reflexive action, also reflex. An involuntary and nearly instantaneous movement in response to a stimulus.”

The mirror is fogging over again. Barnes lets it, choosing to shed the clothing he wore to the gym. With introspection, he knows that his reflexive actions are not those of the man he was before. There is no way to separate those reflexes from who he is. What the Red Room, the KGB, and Hydra ingrained him — he is too much that person to ever go back to being Rogers’ Bucky.

Weeks have passed, Barnes knows he has made progress. The progress allows him to see with a clarity he previously lacked. He can know things. He can remember them. He can learn them. But the reflexive actions that inhabit him now are not — he is not —

Barnes’ fists clench, his metal arm whirring softly as the plates shift.

Breathing.

He inhales slowly, the air thickly humid as it enters his lungs. Chest rising, he counts off the numbers in his mind — one, two, three, four — and then holds his breath for another four before exhaling. The seconds tick by as he repeats his four in, four hold, four out, four hold exercise.

Barnes unclenches his hands. The water hitting his back is very hot.

The thought of failing Rogers, of being unable to meet his expectations, sends a spiral of loathing down his spine. Barnes is unsure who the thought makes him loathe more — the handlers for doing this to him or himself for being unable to overcome the challenges the handlers set before him. Even dead, they erect obstacle courses for him, anticipating failure and subsequent punishment.

 _Failure wasn’t an option before, when it didn’t matter if a mission succeeded or not. It’s not an option now, not when Steve’s on the other end._ The voice has a hard edge now as it whispers through his mind. Oddly, the directive implicit in the words calms Barnes. The arm is heavy as he rolls his shoulders in an attempt to relax muscles pulled taut first by strenuous activity and then by stress.

 _Family_.

With that thought, Barnes’ eyes pop open and he leans forward, out of the spray.

_Family’s like a team. Teammates’re honest with each other. Gotta be honest with family, too._

Frowning, Barnes queries, “Wilson is part of my team. Therefore Wilson is family?”

 _Yeah_.

“Rogers is... family? No, Rogers is... more than family.” Barnes draws the conclusion slowly, but it settles something in his chest.

 _Obviously_ , the voice mutters. _Rogers is your soulmate. The big one. The_ really _big one. Biggest._

“I knew that. Before the fall,” Barnes points out.

 _You were an idiot then. Don’t be an idiot again_.

Barnes stays in the shower until the water begins to run cold, washing slowly. He steps out, towels off properly, and pads out of the bathroom to his bedroom. Light stripes the ceiling again, this time coming from the street lamps outside. Someone is arguing with someone else about something in Spanish across the street. If he paid attention, Barnes would be able to understand the details. He does not pay attention.

Instead, he pulls on sweatpants, grabs a shirt, and walks back toward the kitchen.

“Wilson,” he says.

“Yeah, Sarge?”

“Strategy powwow.”

The mercenary grins wide, shoving a plate of pancake shields onto the table in front of Barnes’ customary seat. “What’re we strategizing in our strategy powwow, Sarge?”

Rolling one of the shields up into a tube, Barnes takes a bite out of it, chews, and then says, “Potential first nonviolent contact with Rogers.”

Wilson stops midway through stuffing his own shield pancake with some type of egg concoction and bacon. “For serious?”

“Yes.”

“Finally,” the mercenary says, putting real feeling into the word. “Okay, so we gotta figure out — Cap likes, what?”

Eating the other half of his pancake tube, Barnes says, “Fighting, being righteous, being righteous while fighting.”

Wilson chokes on his mouthful of pancake and egg concoction.

Barnes eyes the eggs, then drags that plate closer to his own so he can make himself a breakfast pancake taco. Tacos are easy to eat, it is the logical thing to do.

“You gotta quit doing that,” Wilson wheezes.

“Doing what?”

“Stealthing jokes into conversations, I’m not used to it. My delicate sensibilities need preparation.”

Barnes levels an unreadable look at the mercenary over his egg and bacon shield pancake taco. “Delicate. Sensibilities.”

Wilson’s jaw flexes, his scarred lips twitching as he tries not to laugh. Ultimately, he fails.

Taking a bite of his pancake taco to hide the way his own lips are starting to curl upward at the corners, Barnes gestures with his free hand. “Strategy.”

Two days later, Wilson’s voice is nonchalant as he calls, “Heya, Sarge?”

“Yes?”

“This... doesn’t seem like our best plan.”

Barnes shrugs. This is not a sophisticated plan, true, but they have done more with less. “Your presence is not expressly required,” he offers, checking the weapons laid out on the coffee table in front of him.

“We’re not actually assaulting Stark’s tower — ”

“Correct,” Barnes affirms, stretching his arms over his head to loosen his shoulders. He pulls his t-shirt off, tossing it aside before reaching for the thinner material of the undershirt he wears beneath his tac vest.

“So why’re you gettin’ all decked out like you think they’re gonna pull a Mouse Trap and drop a cage on your head when you walk through the door?”

“Because they might. Or someone else could make the attempt.”

“To try and drop a cage on you?”

“Or the technological equivalent,” Barnes says.

“Hey,” Wilson says, stopping Barnes’ preparations with a hand on his arm.

“What?” Barnes asks, tension coiling tightly through his midsection.

“It’s different again,” the mercenary says, nodding toward Barnes’ shoulder.

Glancing down, the material of his undershirt gripped tightly in one hand, Barnes eyes Rogers’ soulmark. “The thread is red.”

“Red’s good, right?”

“Red is... familiar,” Barnes says, mind flashing back through the freeze-framed memories of this soulmark.

“Good familiar?”

The answer is slow in coming, but Barnes nods. “Yes,” he says eventually, pulling his undershirt on, then reaching for his tac vest. He rolls his shoulders, shifting the heavier fabric to settle it securely in place. His shoulder holsters follow a moment later, and he stretches again to make sure that they also fall into the optimal position for highest range of motion.

“Anyway, I’m pretty sure Cap’d just chuck an old fashioned net over your head. Or try and serve up another knuckle sandwich. Maybe. But maybe not. He’s been awful quiet the last few weeks,” Wilson says, shifting his own shoulders so that his katanas lay correctly along either side of his spine.

“Hm...” Barnes murmurs, frowning.

The mercenary just hums an off-key rendition of ‘Cherry Pie’ under his breath. Then he pauses and asks, “Yes guns — no guns?”

Barnes arches an eyebrow. “Do you typically carry guns?”

“Duh.”

“Then yes guns. We are not making a statement about our generalized intentions, Wilson.”

“Right-o. Can do,” the mercenary says, strapping thigh holsters on.

By the time they finish suiting up, they are individually wearing the contents of a very respectable armory. Between the two of them, their weapons combined, they can do a great deal of damage.

Exiting their building, they cross the street. It was necessary to return to the building across from the tower. Strategically, no one would anticipate the move — also, the majority of their weaponry was housed in the apartment two floors and six units south of the one Stark and Barton found.

None of Barnes’ weapons make a sound as he moves. Deadpool — despite the knives, swords, handguns, shotguns, and many varied grenades somehow attached to his person — also manages to avoid making any noise. They do not pause on their approach to the tower’s main entrance, but they do slow as the civilians rushing into and out of the building take notice of them and begin to scatter.

“Are you ready?” Barnes asks, voice lowered in an attempt to keep bystanders from overhearing.

“Pssh,” Wilson says, waving one hand negligently. “I _got_ this, Sarge. Don’t you even worry.”

 

* * *

  

Here’s the thing: This plan isn’t much of a plan.

It’s kind of like the anti-plan.

Like the plan a man plans when there are literally no other planable plans. When a man is out of plans that might have even a modicum of success, this winds up being _the plan_. And Wade’s _good_ at these kinds of plans. If there was a class for this kind of plan, Wade would have aced it — hell, at this point in his life, he’d be _teaching_ it.

 _Now there’s a thought_ , he thinks, pushing through the double doors on the tower’s ground floor. There’s a moment of profound silence after the doors swing shut behind him.

Wade looks to his left. He looks to his right.

No one’s reacting to his presence — it’s like they’re all frozen in place. And _that_ is just poor security on Stark’s part. If the Sarge winds up getting what he needs out of this ridiculous anti-plan, Wade’s gonna have to have words with Tone-Tone about his lack of adequately trained security personnel and appropriate reaction times.

Finally, the guards at the front desk react. Three of them pull their sidearms and point them at him, one of them fades into the background, and a fifth one cracks his neck. The first three and the last one don’t really concern Wade, but the disappearing one — that’s interesting. He’ll have to investigate later.

Hands in plain sight, obviously empty despite the many options he has for filling them with sharp, pointy things, Wade does a fancy finger wiggle thing and bows grandly as he says, “Minions of the Avengers! I mean you _no harm_.” He pauses to see if that has any effect on the three pointing guns at him.

It doesn’t.

The neck crack-y one starts walking toward him, his pace sedate. Wade would roll his eyes, but he still doesn’t know where Security Officer McStealthyPants has gone. “Seriously, I _come in peace_ ,” he says, emphasizing the last three words just in case that helps.

It doesn’t.

“Guys,” he says, shoulders sagging a little. “I haven’t even reached for a weapon. You’re making me feel unwelcome!”

The room echoes strangely for a moment after that declaration, but Wade realizes it’s because the normal sounds people make when they walk and talk and breathe and generally _exist_ have, for the most part, ceased to happen in the tower’s grand foyer. He slides his eyes left and then right again, pleased to see that all the businesspeople have either been evacuated or were smart enough to make their own ways very quietly out of the exits. Not that he intends to do anyone in here any actual harm, that’s not part of their not-a-plan.

“Minions of the Avengers,” Wade repeats, wondering if they can see the frown beneath the stretchy fabric of his mask. “Take me to your leader!” Nobody replies and Future Neck Arthritis is almost within range for hitting. He drops his hands, the movement purposefully sudden, just to see what kind of reaction he’ll get — are the guards trigger-happy? Turns out no, they are not — the mercenary props his palms on his hips and attempts to compromise.

“Okay, fine. So if you won’t take me to Captain America, at _least_ let Hawkguy know I’m here. Or his particular ladybirdfriend! How about tall, blond, and god-like?” When he continues to get absolutely _zero_ response from the minions, Wade throws his hands up in the air and declares, “ _Jesucristo_ , at this point I’d take big, green, and angry.”

“But will big, green, and angry take you?”

The voice echos from above and Wade looks up. So does everyone else in the lobby.

“Aw, heya Birdie-Boo,” Wade coos.

“What’re you doing here, Deadpool?” Hawkguy asks, swinging one leg over the railing of the level he’s standing on.

“I just came to say _hello_ ,” Wade says, making sure he sounds suitably devastated. “And _this_ is the reception I get? I thought we were _friends_ , my Avian Aimer of Tricky Paleolithic Weaponry.”

Hawkguy’s second leg follows the first, and he jumps. There’s a cable attached to his belt, it looks like, so it’s a controlled jump, but no less impressive. When the Avenger’s feet hit the marble slab that is the building’s ground floor, he detaches the cable and starts walking toward Wade. The Neck Cracker has stopped his forward movement, at least. Sneaky McSneakerson is still an unknown variable, but Wade knows he’ll show up again sometime soon.

“Deadpool,” Hawkguy says. “We’ve met one time. At that meeting, you nearly shot me. Twice.”

“Right, okay — but I didn’t shoot you. Not even _once_ ,” Wade says, grinning beneath his mask.

There’s silence for a moment before Hawkguy asks again, “What’re you doing here?”

“Well, I mean. You’ve seen my place. I figured I’d come see yours.”

Before Hawkguy can say anything else, someone pushes the doors behind Wade open. One of them whacks into his shoulder, causing his katanas to clatter a little, but the person doing the pushing doesn’t pause their rant to apologize. “ _No_ , Jane. I know you think Pop Tarts are their very own food group and that they, like, supersede all the others, but they’re not and they don’t. I’ll concede that they’re delicious and tasty and I _know_ Thor loves them, but I’m not buying one of _every kind_ that they have at the bodega. Make Tony do it. Or make Tony make Jarvis do it. I don’t even care. I bought _vegetables_. I’m going to cook _vegetables_. And you’re gonna like ’em.”

Wade half turns, taking in the short-ish brunette with thick-framed, square glasses and a cute little toque on her head. She’s got a phone pressed to her ear, her back mostly to the lobby as she juggles plastic bags full of the aforementioned vegetables. “Hang on, you made me smack somebody with a door, I need to — ” She stops talking as she finally faces the tableau in the tower’s ridiculous entryway. “Uh. I gotta call you back.” She clicks a button to turn her phone off and leans to the side so she can see Hawkguy. “So... nobody’s dying in the lobby, right? Cause I want a do-over if people are dying. Mainly so I can do-over opening the door, and avoid the possibility of being a dead person.”

Hawkguy kind of facepalms a little.

Wade sympathizes.

“Cool toque,” Wade says, gesturing with one still very weaponless hand toward her hat.

She freezes, turning very slightly on her heel so she can look at Wade properly, and Wade has this premonition — it’s a sinking feeling, kind of in the pit of his stomach, but also kind of in his brain. Like, he knows what’s about to happen, but he doesn’t know if he wants to run away from it or embrace it. He’s leaning maybe a little bit toward the latter.

Maybe.

Maybe not.

The brunette’s eyes take in the hilts of his katanas over his shoulders, the knives and guns strapped to various parts of him, and the wide variety of grenades on his belt. He’s got pouches full of other things — like a first aid kit and C4, along with all kinds of fun pointy objects that will pop tires or ventricles, depending on what he needs. But she’s gone back to looking at his mask, her eyes narrowing. She drops the grocery bags, potatoes rolling out of one as she takes three steps forward to close the distance between them. “You _asshole_ ,” she says, shifting from foot to foot like she can’t decide if she wants to kick him in the shin or not.

Hawkguy’s looking between them in confusion. Then he mouths the words ‘you asshole’ and looks toward Stark’s post-modern, industrial-style ceiling.

Once again, Wade sympathizes.

“Hi, soulmate,” he says.

“That’s it? That’s _all_ you’ve got to say for yourself?”

“Uh...” Wade shrugs a little. “I did say your toque was cool?”

“ _Why_ did I have those pointy little things you stick in corncobs all over my back for like three weeks?” She demands, pulling the hem of her shirt up to show him the words ‘cool toque’ printed just beneath her ribs in simple, untraceable Helvetica. Nothing at all remarkable about that font.

“Oh, those are so _fun_ , though,” Wade says, grinning a little despite himself. “And when you’re eating corn on the cob, they’re kind of the only weapon that’s readily available if you get ambushed by creeps tryin’ to re-sargenap your sergeant.”

“You could have used a _fork_ ,” she says, obviously exasperated.

“No, the fork was otherwise engaged,” Wade says. And it’s true! The Sarge had used the fork on one of the Hydra goons who’d snuck up on them at this nifty little barbecue place right outside of Savannah.

“Otherwise engaged,” she repeats, lips doing that flat line thing that’s never good as she drops her shirt back into place.

“Okay, look. I’m pretty sure you don’t want the deets, chica, but _yes_ , it was not available for stabbing,” Wade says.

“Jesus Christ,” Hawkguy says, eyes flicking back and forth between Wade and the brunette.

“And what about the rust!”

“What rust?” Wade asks, legitimately confused and maybe a little bit intrigued.

“The rust! The rust that gets on _everything_ that my soulmark turns into!” She says, gesturing vaguely toward the spot where her soulmark words are once again hidden. “Things have been less rusty lately, though, so... uh. Good job. For that.”

“I got nothin’,” Wade says, shrugging a little. That’s not entirely true. He _might_ have an idea about the rust, but it’s not for public sharing time.

“The knives, the guns, those cool little butterfly bomb things from World War II,” she says. “I liked those, by the way.”

Quirking a smile again, even knowing she can’t really see it — probably wouldn’t want to see it, even if she could — Wade says, “Me, too.”

“I know _so much_ about weapons — I had a halberd on my leg for like two months!”

“Hey, I know _so much_ about fonts — you were a _question mark_ in every different font available for _years_.”

“Aw!” She says, grinning now.

“Wingdings,” they say in unison.

Then she laughs and nudges him with her elbow. “You’re not, like, legit assaulting the tower, are you? Cause I kinda live here and, like, all my peeps live here, too.”

“Nah, just dropping in to say hello. Me and Tone-Tone met the other day, and he seemed like a pretty cool cat,” Wade says.

“Yeah, he’s like the sassmaster,” she agrees.

“Oh my _God_ ,” Hawkguy says.

Wade tilts his head toward the Avenger as he asks his soulmate, “Think he’s burst a vessel in his brain yet? His particular ladybirdfriend would probably not like that so much.”

Leaning to the side again so she can look at Hawkguy, the brunette says, “Hey, Barton. Don’t die. He’s right, Natasha’d probably be kinda mad.” She straightens, then holds her hand out to Wade. “I’m Darcy.”

Taking her hand, the mercenary says, “Wade. It’s nice to meet you.”

“You, too.” Darcy quirks a smile at him, then asks, “You comin’ up, or what? Cause I’ve got vegetables to make for an ornery scientist who only wants to eat Pop Tarts.”

“I got Pop Tarts at my place, if she needs ’em real bad,” Wade offers.

“Nah, wouldn’t want you to disappear back into the ether from which you came,” Darcy replies, narrowing her eyes at him.

“I mean, it’s like right there,” he hooks his thumb over his shoulder at the building across the street. Technically, both apartments over there are the Sarge’s and only one of them has Pop Tarts, but.

“Mm... still no. Janie needs her healthy greens. For a scientist, she’s _amazingly_ disinclined to eat actual food.”

“’Kay,” Wade says, shrugging.

Hidey McStealtherson of the House of Suspect Invisibility, having materialized near Hawkguy, clears his throat. “Sir?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Barton says, waving his hand in Wade’s general direction. “Sure — why not? Let ’im in. This’ll be great.”

“Very good, sir,” the wannabe H.G. Wells character says. When he doesn’t immediately return to his station, Hawkguy raises his eyebrows. “What would you like us to do about the second intruder?”

Hawkguy’s expression blanks. “The second intruder?”

“Yes, sir. Wearing all black. Metal arm,” Disillusionment Charm says.

Hawkguy sighs.

Feim Zii Gron continues, “Based on the reviewed security footage, we believe he’s the man who attacked Captain Rogers on the bridge in D.C.”

Wade decides the ridiculously effective twit deserves to get stabbed.

“You sneaky bastard,” Darcy whispers, nudging his side again.

“Well,” Wade demurs, attempting to deflect what he assumes is a compliment.

“What’s he here for?” She asks, her voice low.

“Wants to nonviolently talk to Cap without an audience,” Wade mutters back.

“I can respect that,” Darcy says. “But you kinda hella compromised security.”

“Nah,” Wade disagrees. “Sarge isn’t a threat. He’s just mixed up.”

“Like you’re mixed up?” She asks.

Wade turns to look her in the eye. “Kinda,” he says. “Different recipes that’ve got us all mixed up, though.”

“I’m _great_ at recipes,” Darcy says, bending down to start regathering her groceries.

Sitting on his heels to pick up the potatoes that scattered, Wade considers that and doesn’t reply. Maybe he can coordinate with the Sarge to get out of here before this turns into a thing.

“Unbe _liev_ able,” Hawkguy mutters as Wade stands up, potatoes held in his arms.

“Hey, Hawkguy,” Wade says, catching the superhero’s eye. “Need you to do me a solid.”

Warily, the Avenger quirks an eyebrow.

“Call Cap, would ya? And, I dunno. Get him to talk or something.”

There’s a prolonged moment of silence as everyone in the lobby of Stark’s eyesore of a tower stares at him.

“Get him to... talk. Or something,” Hawkguy says.

“Yeah.”

“About _what_?”

“I dunno,” Wade says, trying not to drop his potatoes everywhere as he shrugs.

Darcy looks from Hawkguy to Wade, then narrows her eyes. “I got this,” she says, pulling her phone back out of her pocket. “Don’t you even worry.”

Before Wade can be weirded out by what his soulmate just said — and how she said it — “Rebel Girl” by Bikini Kill starts blaring from the level Hawkguy made his dramatic entrance from earlier.

Everyone looks up again.

Darcy pulls her phone away from her ear and wiggles it in an unrepentant hello at the World War II icon standing up there. “Heya, Steve.”

“Holy shit, you’re on a _first name basis_ with the United States’ most heroic _national treasure_?” Wade hisses.

“Duh,” Darcy says.

“ _Omigod_ ,” Wade squeaks.

“What’s going on?” Captain America asks.

“Wait,” Wade says, dropping his armful of potatoes. “If he’s here, then where’s — ”

No one has a chance to answer the _very important question_ that Wade _didn’t get to finish asking_ because the electricity cuts out. Emergency lighting flickers on a moment later.

“Motherfucker,” Wade says, voice devoid of inflection as he pivots toward the double doors behind him. If he’s fast enough, he _might_ be able to make it to the Sarge in time to stop whatever shitshow’s about to go down. Or at least help make sure the other guys come out a little bit bloodier. Except —

“Wait,” he repeats, jerking to a stop before turning right back around. He draws Thelma and Louise from his shoulder holsters and fires three rounds from each of his ladies. Two bullets go into Traitor McSneaky-Twat, who’s drawing a knife to stab Hawkguy, two go into the guy coming up behind Darcy through an emergency stairwell exit, and two go into the guy dropping through the skylight over Captain America’s head.

“Cap,” Wade says into the ringing silence which follows his precisely aimed kill shots. He waits until the Captain straightens from his defensive crouch and looks down at him over the railing. “We got a problem.”

The building rocks beneath all of them, dust and bits of debris falling from above, as something Wade can only assume is a bomb explodes.

“Goddammit,” Hawkguy growls.

Wade continues to sympathize.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay! So this is the beginning of the end of Walking Through Windows! :D 
> 
> First and foremost, I'd like to thank Michael for being such a _massive_ help with beta-ing this monster of a chapter. He's the reason you guys get the epilogue* at the end. He's also the reasons certain parts of this actually make _sense_. :) I'd also like to give Frito a shout out for helping me with the last scene in this chapter. She was great help cheering me on with Wade's ridiculousness. She's the reason you guys get the stinger.* Also, thank you to everyone who's kept up with this fic. It's been a delight to get, read, and respond to your comments. Thanks everyone for leaving kudos and bookmarking this, as well.  <3
> 
> All mistakes that remain in this fic are mine and mine alone. (Usual disclaimer: Unless the mistakes are formatting, in which case I blame Google/AO3.) If you see anything glaring, please let me know. Typos and grammatical errors drive me nuts, but there're only so many times you can read over 25k to try to pick them out. 
> 
> Just a note: I unabashedly cribbed Bucky's stairwell hopping from Season One of Agent Carter - if you haven't watched it, you most definitely should. There's a bit toward the end where Dottie does what Bucky does in the fic, so if you'd like a visual reference, check that out on youtube.
> 
> Thanks again. :) I'm going to go back to pecking away at an AU that involves Nazis and good people doing terrible things. Hopefully I'll be able to finish that and then pick up the next part of the Soulmate AU.
> 
> *There's an epilogue and a stinger that I'm going to post after this, so keep an eye out for them.

As Barnes ascends the stairs in Howard’s son’s tower, he considers the possibility that his imminent interaction with Rogers might not go well — might, in fact, proceed in a fashion far less optimal than their initial face-to-face meeting in Sokovia — given the level of emotional turmoil the other man has apparently been experiencing. Barnes pauses on the thirty-ninth floor, listening to the echo of doors in the stairwell as they bang open; the footsteps that approach him with alacrity from above and below. The hair at the nape of his neck stands on end as he attempts to count footfalls. If he can number the feet making them, he will have some idea of just how many people are clattering toward him.

He cannot. There are too many echoes rebounding between the floors and the walls, through the empty space in the middle.

Barnes looks over the railing, flicking his eyes up and down. There are at least twenty people in all-black riot gear in the stairwell now. This does not bode well for him. The decision is a simple one, easily made. He throws himself over the railing and begins a quick descent, jumping from floor to subsequent floor to avoid the men and all their various weapons. As his boots hit the top rail of each level and leave slight dents, Barnes allows the analytical portion of his mind to take over. Running the numbers, he evaluates potential reasons for this overblown reaction to his presence.

He knows for a fact that Howard’s son is not interested in taking him prisoner. For all that Barnes and Rogers have not spoken a civil word to one another in this century, he knows Rogers would not stand for it if Howard’s son made that attempt. However, given the large-caliber arms the men and women in the stairwell are sporting, the likelihood that they intend to do anything but take him prisoner is small. In fact, one man, his eyes widening with fear as Barnes drops past him, is carrying a set of handcuffs that will neutralize Barnes’ left arm.

Which means that these are not actually Howard’s son’s employees, despite the Stark Industries logos emblazoned on all of their gear.

Hydra has found him again.

Barnes acknowledges that he has not made it difficult for them. The trail of bodies and hollowed-out, burned down buildings he has left in his wake could be interpreted as nothing but a challenge — a red flag screaming ‘find me, find me, find me.’ Of course they would choose today, the day he finally attempts to initiate non-violent contact with Rogers, to execute their subdue-and-recapture mission objective.

His vibranium hand bears the brunt of impact each time he catches the railing on his ricocheting path downward. On every floor, Barnes overhears snippets of phrases, pieces of information.

“ — cut the power to the building — ”

“ — computer systems down — ”

“ — backup generators — ”

“ — contingencies — ”

“ — disturbance in the lobby — ”

“ — window of opportunity closing — ”

“ — negative, no kill order — ”

“ — coming down fast — ”

Barnes reassesses the situation before he reaches the ground floor. Rogers’ suite is on the forty-fourth — Barnes has time to formulate a plan as he avoids the Hydra agents sent to collect him. Once he reaches the bottom of the stairwell, he will have only two options. Regardless of which he chooses, Hydra will take possession of him — he is too valuable to them, especially given Project: Insight’s failure, for them to leave him in the wind.

The first option — he can fight the operatives undoubtedly waiting for him at the exit. They seem to comprise a full company. That makes sense. Whoever sent them apparently understands Barnes’ capabilities and does not want to risk this gambit failing. They have chosen, for once, not to underestimate him. On the one hand, this pleases him. On the other, he wishes they had chosen another day — any other day — to wise up.

The second option — he can go with them without a struggle. There are several factors to consider when it comes to _allowing_ himself to be taken. Rogers is not in a good place. He has not been in a good place since long before their confrontation in Sokovia. Barnes understands this. He would like to believe that Rogers will come for him, once he realizes that Barnes has been recaptured.

He cannot say that he does — not with any degree of certainty.

What Barnes does know, beyond even the faintest shadow of a doubt, is that Wilson will come for him. Natalia will come for him. She will bring Barton. The two of them will, most likely, bring the Asgardian.

Frustrated that he must make this decision when he likes neither of these options, Barnes frowns. He sees that there are no immediate threats and pauses just long enough on the fifth floor to activate the small tracker stuck to his vibranium elbow. It irritated him when Wilson suggested it, but he supposes he will have to thank the man when all of this is over. Assuming, of course, that he survives what will inevitably happen next.

He dislikes placing his fate in the hands of others, but the marks are important — potentially the most important things in this life he is carving for himself. If he cannot trust the people whose souls made the marks on his skin, then who can he trust?

Barnes hops back over the railing on the fifth floor and walks the rest of the way down, boots clunking heavily on the rubber treads covering the stairs. He raises his hands as he reaches the final landing, palms facing the group of Hydra cannon fodder crammed into the space at the base of the stairwell, and arches an eyebrow at them. The operatives relax minutely, angling their weapons toward the floor. Then Barnes smirks, his expression confident and self-aware as he says, “C’mon, boys. If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead. Alla you shoved in here — like shootin’ fish in a barrel.”

The men from the upper levels jostle into place behind him, but he never takes his eyes off the person standing silently near the emergency exit at the base of the stairwell. They are short, slight, androgynous, and fair, but Barnes can see the person’s upper arms from his current position, and there are no soulmark hands on them. The manipulation they hope to use against him does not matter given that fact. Some knowledge runs deeper than sinew and reflex, sleeps in the marrow of his bones.

The fair one raises a hand to their ear, whispers, “Now,” and the stairwell drops into a depthless black. It lasts for only a moment, Howard’s son’s emergency lighting flickering to life with barely a delay. Blood-red and angry, it washes over everything in the stairwell. The urge to smile outright at this person, this would-be handler, tickles the back of his mind and Barnes nearly gives in, nearly concedes. It would be terrifying for the peons — the Winter Soldier shows emotion only during the course of a mission. But the voice in the back of his mind whispers, _Listen_.

So he does.

Faint footsteps, loafers or dress shoes, pad softly on carpet from the other side of the door on this landing — moving inexorably toward him and the weapons once more aimed at him. The Hydra personnel above and below him cannot hear those steps, cannot hear the muffled breathing and the quiet discussion taking place between several of Howard’s son’s legitimate employees.

 _Go on_ , the voice says. _Might as well take a few of ’em out before we go. Leave some breadcrumbs for Wilson. Maybe Rogers._ Barnes gets the fleeting impression of intense weariness, which fits. He is, himself, tired of this fight he has unsuccessfully fought for almost seventy years.

Surging forward, Barnes drops over the railing nearest him, engaging the men directly below the landing while making sure that at least two ricocheting bullets hit the door above. Hopefully, Howard’s son’s employees are intelligent enough to quietly hold their position on the other side of the now-pockmarked surface.

Since he has committed to this show of violence, Barnes allows his body to do what it does best: kill. The vibranium hand deflects bullets as he engages each new wave of Hydra lackies, waiting for what he knows will come. It is an inevitability, now that he has begun killing those sent to take him in. He has vague, fragmented recollections of this scenario playing out on several different occasions. Perhaps they will think it is simply a part of his base personality’s willfulness overriding his programming. They might not injure him as much as they can if they believe it is only the resurgence of his base personality.

Perhaps, if he kills enough of them, it will not matter.

The electrodes catch him in the throat, the would-be handler near the exit angling them so that their prongs lodge beneath his chin just as he spins to deliver a vicious kick to the side of an operative’s knee. Barnes goes down convulsing, all grace and precision lost to the vicious, electrically induced muscle spasms wracking his body. The analytical portion of his mind makes a note to invest in a chin and throat guard of some sort. Possibly, he will have to ask Wilson if the mercenary has any contacts capable of making such a thing. Not a mask — Barnes is done with those. But something to protect his throat.

Consciousness leaves him slowly, his secondhand serum and innate stubbornness combining to make the would-be handler deliver another jolt of electricity through the prongs in his neck. Hearing is the last sense to go — it always is. Which means Barnes hears the quiet footfalls of the would-be handler, light and sure, as they approach him.

“Prep him for transport. We have ninety seconds before the AI reboots, less than that before the mercenary finishes off the expendables in the lobby and gets here. Two minutes to detonation.” The voice sinks into Barnes’ gray matter and makes itself at home, a tonal impression that he will keep with him for the rest of his life.

 _I will find you_ , Barnes thinks, letting the blackness in his mind take him as the prongs serve up one final dose of high-voltage pain to his throat.

 

* * *

 

 

The Quinjet hums soft and steady beneath Clint’s hands as he checks their coordinates. They’re cloaked, so unless somebody’s got some tech even Tony can’t outsmart, it’s safe for him to turn his attention to the conversation going on behind him. He gives his seat a quarter turn so he can keep an eye on the controls while watching all his teammates.

“They _blew up my mainframe_ ,” Tony growls, fingers flying over what Clint’s pretty sure are keyboards that only the genius can see. “How the hell did they even physically _get_ to my mainframe?”

“You have a backup,” Bruce points out from his position on the floor. He’s sitting cross-legged, back to one of the walls, hands turned palm-up on his knees in a semblance of calm — but his fingers flex every thirty seconds or so, knuckles going white before relaxing again. Bruce is about as calm as any of them — which is to say, not very. Clint’s glad he’s got a better handle on being angry than anybody else on the jet.

“I’ve got _six_ backups — you don’t seriously think I’d leave J vulnerable by storing him in only one location, do you?”

“Then why’re you all...” Clint gestures toward the other man and raises his eyebrows.

“Because when they blew up _that_ mainframe, they tanked most of the data Jarvis had aggregated from the SHIELD internet dump. Which — fine. Whatever. All of it was backed up in Helsinki — but _getting_ it from Helsinki’s gonna be a _pain_ and we don’t have _time_ ,” Tony says, still frantically typing.

“We don’t need time,” Tasha says, turning in the co-pilot’s seat so she can actually look at everyone, too. She’s eerily calm. Like, ice-cold calm. Like, so calm she’s practically the opposite of calm. She does this when she’s actually invested in a thing.

Wilson’s been weirdly silent, standing apart from everyone else.

“We’ve got him,” Steve says, lifting his chin in the mercenary’s direction.

“They disabled the oh-hey-I’m-a-tracker tracker six minutes and twenty-three seconds after exiting the tower,” Wilson says, not turning away from his intense contemplation of the lever that opens the cargo doors. “It took them another six hours and forty-seven seconds to disable the backup tracker. I’ve got one backup backup to go before we’re SOL, Avengers. So let’s make sure this particular Hydra head’s dead before that happens.” Spinning on the ball of his foot in a bizarrely graceful move, the mercenary looks over the people now staring blankly at him. “What?”

“Does Buck know you put trackers on him?” Steve asks.

“He knows about the one I made him stick on his shiny elbow,” Wilson says, shrugging. “He probably suspects I’ve got another one on him. He definitely doesn’t know about the chemical trace I put on his gear.”

“Chemical trace?” Tasha asks, brows rising.

“Sure. Spray on. It’s contact sensitive — reacts to body heat. Lights up like a fuckin’ lighthouse if you’re keepin’ an eye on the right frequencies,” Wilson says. “Which — duh. I am”

Before anyone else can comment on that, Clint says, “Can I get some of that? Like, after we’ve rescued Barnes?” When Steve frowns at him, Clint shrugs. “What? It pays to be paranoid. Exhibit A.” He waves to the mercenary.

Clint sees Sam shoot Tasha a pointed look. She just does her mouth-shrug thing, which makes Clint smile a little despite the circumstances.

Wilson points at Clint. “Yes.” He points at Sam. “Don’t judge. Also, hello Wilson-bro.” He points at Steve. “You can put your waggly eyebrows away, too.” He points at Tasha. “Marry me.”

“No,” Tasha says, smirking outright.

“Okay,” Wilson says. “Darcy-mark might object.”

“ _Barton_ -mark definitely objects,” Clint says. In an attempt to reroute the conversation, he continues, “Give Tony the coords so I can get us on the right course. Right now ‘motherfuckers took him to Poughkeepsie’ is vague enough to not be helpful beyond ‘mostly north, probably.’”

Pulling two phones from different pouches on his truly impressive tac vest/belt combo, Wilson takes a moment to push buttons on both of them, then tosses one to Tony. “Don’t fuck that up, Tone-Tone.”

“Yeah, yeah. You mirrored it, your little hacker friend is monitoring its activity, yadda yadda. Like I couldn’t put a stop to _that_ if I felt like it. We gotta find Terminator II before Cap bursts a blood vessel or something — so woo, teamwork,” Tony mutters, putting the phone on a small, metal plate near where his other hand still emphatically taps at the invisible keyboard.

Clint watches the coordinates pop up on the screen to his left. “That,” he says, sitting back in his chair. “That is _not_ Poughkeepsie.”

“We _cleared_ Poughkeepsie,” Wilson mutters, turning back to look at the lever. He’d said the same thing as they were boarding the jet earlier. Then Clint’s words seem to register, and he spins back around. “Wait, what?”

“If your chemical trace’s right — they got him out in the middle of fuckin’ nowhere.”

“That’s not nowhere,” Wilson says as the others straighten so they can see what Clint and the mercenary are talking about. “That’s Mexico.”

“You sure that chemical thing’s accurate?” Steve asks.

“Yeah, absolutely,” Wilson answers.

“It’s been almost seven hours since they snatched him,” Sam points out. “They could’ve taken him anywhere, especially with access to a jet of their own.”

“We’re lucky they didn’t get him to Europe. Or halfway across the Pacific,” Clint says.

“Europe we could’ve handled,” Wilson says. “They got almost no backup in Europe now. Fuck, I got — hang on.”

“Jumpin’ outta the jet before we get there won’t do you one bitta good,” Clint says, turning back to the controls.

“Not jumpin’ anywhere, Birdie-Boo,” Wilson mutters, pulling his own phone out of a completely different pouch from either of the other ones he had phones in. “Tone-Tone, I’ma give you some access codes and shit — server I set up to keep track of the Sarge’s movements.”

Steve’s expression oscillates between impressed, mildly furious, and grateful.

“Pays to be paranoid,” Clint mutters.

Tasha leans over. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” She asks, voice soft.

“That we oughta set up a server for somethin’ like that?” Clint asks, tone matching hers.

“That, yes. But — ”

“Barnes made some kinda progress if he let Wilson do it?”

“That, too. But — ”

“Steve’s halfway in love with Barnes’ Wilson?”

Tasha snorts softly. “No,” she says. “That’s stretching it. But it’s funny, how soulmates work.”

“Funny?” Clint asks, turning the jet around.

“He’s apparently exactly what Vanya needed,” she says.

“Safety net,” Clint offers.

“Yes. But then, what about this?” She twists her right hand, indicating her wrist.

Clint doesn’t reply immediately. He considers the question, because it’s serious. “You think he woulda remembered things like he did if he didn’t have that reminder? Like, you — you as a reminder?”

“I don’t know.”

“You remembered new stuff, right? Because of him?”

“Yes,” she says, frowning slightly.

“Helped put things in perspective, right?”

Tasha laughs quietly before leaning over to brush a kiss against the corner of his lips. “ _You_ help put things in perspective.”

“Aw, shucks,” Clint says, grinning. “You’re gonna make me blush.”

“Can it, Barton,” she mutters, but she gives him another kiss, quick and light, before straightening up and moving into the back of the jet. He can hear her speaking to someone, probably Steve. Her voice is low, like always, modulated and soothing.

Thor takes the seat that Tasha vacated. “Barton,” the demigod says, nodding.

“Thor,” Clint returns.

“How long will it take us to reach our destination?”

“Assuming they’ve reached whatever base they’re taking him to, so they stay put? In the Quinjet, about four hours.”

“Hydra — they managed to prolong the battle at the tower.”

“Yeah, they’re assholes that way,” Clint says.

“I should apologize to the Captain,” Thor says, frowning.

“What? Why?”

“Had I not been otherwise engaged, I might have aided you and brought the conflict there to an end more quickly,” Thor says.

“Nah, nobody could’ve handled the ones in the labs any faster than they got handled,” Clint says. “I mean, we’re lucky we didn’t wind up with a Code Green right then and there.” The fact that Bruce’s lab was private rather than shared was the only thing that had kept them from having to deal with a rampaging Hulk in Manhattan. As things were, Tony’d lost at least five loyal employees when the Hydra plants showed their true colors. “Besides, you’ve got a life, big guy. You can’t babysit the mortals all the time. And your lady doc’d probably get irritated with you if you tried.”

“This is true,” Thor concedes. “Jane would undoubtedly disapprove of such an attempt.”

“See? And it’s lucky you guys were out of the tower, anyway, cause she wasn’t in the labs when shit got real. Neither was Darce. And _she_ met her soulmate. So,” Clint said. “In a day full of kinda crappy things, there’s a few good ones.”

“Ah,” Thor says, casting a look into the rear of the jet. Clint glances over his shoulder, too. The mercenary’s standing with his shoulders propped against the cargo doors’ lever. He seems oddly at ease in a transport full of superheroes, given his track record.

“Yeah,” Clint agrees, facing forward again.

“He is an admirable warrior,” Thor says.

Clint blinks. That wasn’t where he figured the conversation was going. “Yeah?”

“To have mastered so many varied weapons — and to wear them so proudly,” Thor answers, nodding. “I have heard it said that this Deadpool is an expert hand-to-hand combatant, as well.”

“He’s supposed to be good with a lot of martial arts,” Clint says, frowning a little. “Like, _a lot_ a lot, actually. That’s kinda weird.”

“How so?” Thor asks, settling comfortably in the co-pilot’s chair.

“I dunno, but usually people focus on one or two, get really good at ’em,” Clint says. “He’s really good at a bunch, though.” After double checking their new coordinates, he turns back toward the rest of his team and calls, “Hey, Deadpool!”

“Yeah, Tweetmeister?”

“Wanna save me the trouble of digging through all the SHIELD crap Tasha dumped online and tell me how old you are?”

“You want what my papers say?”

“Your papers say the real date or the fake one?”

“Duh,” Wilson says, snorting. “Fake. I was born in 1961.”

There’s a ringing sort of silence in the rear, which Clint thinks is only appropriate given the number of people doing math in their head. Deadpool is fifty-one. “Shit,” he says.

“Watch your mouth around your elders. You’ll gimme palpitations,” Wilson says, one hand fluttering over his heart.

“So’re you like, totally decrepit under that suit?” Tony asks.

“Nah,” Wilson says, but doesn’t elaborate.

Clint knows Tony saw the mercenary’s scars when they did their whole B&E schtick, so either the genius is being willfully obtuse or he’s so buried in whatever he’s doing to get his data from Helsinki that he’s not paying attention to what’s coming out of his mouth.

“Huh,” Clint says, expression thoughtful. “So... we got one major geezer — Thor, one minor geezer — Steve, and everybody’s favorite dirty uncle — Deadpool — on the Quinjet. Not to mention the science bros, two awesome assassins, and a former pararescue dude. Sam, I think you’re the only normal person on this jet... and you think jumping out of airplanes with mechanical wings strapped to your back is a fun hobby.” Shaking his head, he presses it back against the headrest and mutters, “Boy, we sure know how to pick ’em.”

“At least Sam packs a parachute,” Tasha chimes in sweetly. Clint cuts his eyes to the side just in time to see the look she throws first him, then Steve. This, at least, is a well-trod disagreement.

“I had a grappling arrow,” Clint gripes.

“We were _over water_ ,” Steve says. “I had the shield.”

“Wait, is jumping out of planes without parachutes a thing you guys do?” Wilson asks.

“When we don’t _need_ them,” Steve answers.

“No,” Tasha says, talking over Steve. “No, it’s not.”

“Seems like sometimes it is,” Wilson points out, sounding skeptical.

“Not if you ever want to hear the end of it,” Steve mutters.

Before anyone else can join the conversation, the lights in the jet go out and the engine cuts off. The lack of sound positively screams as Clint jolts forward to get his hands on the controls. “What the — ”

“Sorry, sorry,” Tony says. His face is illuminated a moment later by eerie blue light, obviously his own electronics coming into play.

“Tony,” Steve says, jaw probably doing that thing it does when he clenches it really hard and muscles no one else possesses flex.

“I’m fixing it, I’m fixing it! I swear, just give me...”

“You have approximately twenty seconds before I pull this manual lever and toss you out of the jet, Tone-Tone,” Wilson says, sounding bored.

“The system override — just a second, I needed to install — doesn’t matter, you’ll be back online in three — two — ”

The lights come back on, the engines rev up, and everyone jerks backward a little as the jet surges forward.

“Obsolete software clogging up the — doesn’t matter, I fixed it,” Tony says, waving his hands at everyone. When no one opens their mouth to immediately forgive him, he sighs. “You guys are no fun. Where’s Rhodey? I want Rhodey.”

“Colonel Rhodes is dealing with some border crossing issues in Arizona,” Tasha answers. After a momentary pause, she gets that thoughtful look on her face, like she’s considering risky possibilities and liking her odds. Clint loves that look. “Give him a call, see if he’d like to make an appearance. Just so I can relate that bit of stupidity to him. Watching him hand you your ass would be a genuine pleasure right now, Stark.”

“Wait, _Colonel_ Rhodes?” Sam asks, eyes going wide.

“The one and only,” Tony sing-songs, his phone magically appearing between his ear and his shoulder even as his hands begin flying over his invisible keyboards again. “Somebody remind me to install J on this thing.”

“We need a plan,” Steve says, moving toward the front of the jet.

“Tony’s working on getting us whatever intel he can about the coordinates Wilson’s chemical trace provided,” Tasha says, following him.

Both of the Wilsons have migrated as well. Looks like they’ll be having their strategy session up where Clint can actually participate.

“We should get there in two hours. And Barnes’s been stationary for eighty-three minutes,” Tony yells, throwing a cloth at the group of them without actually looking away from his screen. “Rhodey, no one appreciates me here. I give them toys and fix their crappy software so their jets fly faster and — ”

Clint tunes Tony out. “He’s right about our timeline, though,” he offers. “Whatever software thing was holding back the engines, he tweaked it to where it works twice as good now.”

“I’ll thank him later,” Steve says, voice quiet.

“We can’t really do much planning until we know what we’re looking at,” Sam says.

“I got nothin’ for you there,” the mercenary shrugs. “That’s all the Sarge’s department. I basically just carry around the big guns to make bigger explosions.” He rubs at the back of his neck. “Hi, my name is Wade. I make an excellent distraction. What about you, matryoshka?” He lifts his chin toward Tasha. “You got any sneaky inklings about this base?”

“I didn’t have anything to do with the American branch of the Red Room,” she says. “And the KGB was defunct before anybody started paying attention to the southern hemisphere. It’s all Hydra. We could make some educated guesses, but Sam’s right. Without some actual blueprints — ”

“We don’t need blueprints,” Steve says, shaking his head. “They’re useful, but they’re not necessary.”

“Okay, what’re you thinking, Cap?” Clint asks.

“SOP,” Steve says, shrugging.

“Aw, Steve,” Clint says, sighing. “No.”

“Ah,” Thor murmurs, nodding. “Our plan is to go in without a plan.”

“I thought,” Wilson begins, “that you were some kind of master strategist.” His mask is pointed directly at Steve.

“We’ll cover our bases,” Steve says with another shrug.

“So what’s your SOP?” Wilson asks.

“Clint’s specialty is ranged weaponry, so he covers us from up high. Thor and Tony in the air. Sam, that’s where you’ll be. Rhodes, too, if he can make it from Arizona. Natasha and I will go in on the ground. Wilson, you’ll stick with us. Air support tags in if it looks like we’re having trouble. Bruce will stay with the jet manning the comms unless we call a Code Green. In that case, just stay out of his way.”

“What’s our aim?” Clint asks.

“Smash and grab,” Steve says. “This isn’t data retrieval. We’re not trying to salvage any equipment. Shoot to kill if you have to. We’re not able to handle prisoners. We get in, we get Bucky, we get out. If there’s anything left standing when we’re through, we give the coordinates to Hill and let her make nice with the Mexican government.”

“This is your SOP?” Wilson asks. Clint can’t tell from his voice whether he’s awed or incredulous.

“Sometimes we get permission to blow things up before we cross international borders,” Tasha says, smiling a little.

“I gotta get in on this gig,” Wilson says. He’s awed. It’s definitely clear now.

“We’ll talk about that once we’re back in New York,” Steve replies, which surprises absolutely no one who actually knows him.

“Wait, seriously?” Apparently Wilson doesn’t have any idea just how off the wall Steve can be sometimes.

“You’re one of Buck’s soulmates, Wilson. Your approach to most combat situations is unorthodox, but effective. We watched some of the security tapes from the base in Leon prior to Bucky looping the surveillance footage, so we know what you can do solo. You’ve got a rep for getting jobs done — but you won’t take certain kinds of jobs. Despite what you might want people to think, you’ve got some morals. And I’ve been told you’re damn near impossible to kill, which seems like it might come in handy,” Steve says, eyebrows rising. Clint reminds himself that Steve’s ideas, once he explains the, don’t usually sound very off the wall.

“Holy shitballs,” the mercenary mutters. “I’m gonna take a me moment, make it all private-like in my brain.” He backs up a step, turns around, and goes back to staring at his lever.

“I think,” Clint says, “that you just blew Barnes’ Wilson’s mind.”

Steve shrugs. “Everything I said was true.”

“Yeah, but _you_ said it. You’re totally gonna have to actually give the man an autograph when this is over,” Clint mutters.

Steve only looks mildly embarrassed at the reminder that the mercenary is apparently his number one fan. His own Wilson, though, is giving Steve an assessing kind of once over. “I’m down for flying air support — and being a distraction if I have to be,” he says. “But don’t think my easy acceptance here means we’re not having a discussion about you jumpin’ outta airplanes without a ’chute, Cap.”

“You do know that was before the helicarriers, right? You’re the one who caught me after I jumped off one of those — made a smart comment about how heavy I was,” Steve replies.

Deciding this is most definitely a conversation he wants to witness, Clint talks Tasha into taking the pilot’s seat solely through the language of significant eyebrow wiggling. Steve’s resigned face is a beautiful thing — and anything that can take the good Captain’s mind off of whatever guilt he’s got stewing, Clint figures he should contribute, if he can.

“You’re ridiculous,” Tasha says as he stands to move out of her way.

“Yeah, but I’m your ridiculous, so it’s all good.”

 

* * *

 

 Barnes wakes to the incessant, low-grade buzz and dull flickering of fluorescent lights.

He _hates_ fluorescent lights.

He could never put his finger on why they aggravated him so badly when he was simply the asset, but he thinks now that it has something to do with the way they wash out even the healthiest of complexions. Fluorescent bulbs can dehumanize anyone. They draw the life out of a person’s eyes and smile, corroding the senses until the man strapped to the table or the chair is no longer sentient to whoever is poking at him with needles and knives.

Barnes hated fluorescent lights when he could not name them. He despises them now that he has new-made memories of natural light — now that the him from before has given him old, tattered memories of lamplight on dirty, cobbled street corners; sunlight streaking golden through the gaps in the newspaper plastered to the pitted, bubbling glass of the apartment window in the tenement he shared with Rogers; firelight’s orange-yellow haze hitting everyone in the circle around it, their breaths frosting in the air as they laugh at someone’s ridiculous story.

On one particularly memorable occasion several months ago, Barnes systematically destroyed every fluorescent bulb in a Hydra safe house before burning it to the ground. Wilson suggested they roast marshmallows over the flames.

Barnes likes that memory.

The Hydra personnel — responsible for evaluating his bionic arm for decreased or impaired functionality due to months without proper maintenance — are nonplussed by the soulmark which surrounds its connective plating at the shoulder. Were he not in his current position, he would find their wariness amusing. Considering that he is bound at the arms, legs, and midsection by bands of metal meant specifically to keep him immobile and that the arm has been remotely disabled, Barnes finds nothing humorous at the moment.

But he knew this would happen, that it was a probability. The people in Howard’s son’s tower were a minor consideration, but avoiding collateral damage _had_ been a factor.

 _Good job_ , the voice in the back of his mind tells him. Its tone indicates it is being completely sincere.

The man on his right scribbles something on a piece of paper. “Jesus, what did he do? Take out a personal ad?”

“I have no idea, but — what is this? Three marks in total? In less than a year?”

Barnes gives no sign that he has woken, maintains the slow, steady breathing of the unconscious as these people circle him.

One of them pries open a panel at the arm’s shoulder. Barnes keeps his muscles relaxed. The arm is nonfunctional at the moment, anyway. He does not know if they found and removed the tracker. The odds are high that they did and that they have. He hopes they have not located whatever other trackers Wilson, in all his enviable paranoia, placed on Barnes’ person.

“What d’you suppose that little one on his wrist means?”

“We checked the image against tech schematics and photographs from R&D,” the one on the right says. “That’s one of the Black Widow’s bites.”

“I thought they were stings.”

“Irrelevant.”

“You seen the files on them from the nineties?” The tech asks, digging through circuitry. Barnes assumes they mean to access the release mechanism so they can remove the arm entirely.

“Yes, of course,” the one on the right says. “Talk about cold.”

Both of them laugh as though those words are the pinnacle of intelligence and wit.

“But seriously,” the tech says, metal clicking and clacking as he digs through the arm’s interior. “This guy’s history.” His voice drops. “Can’t really blame him for going AWOL, right?”

The man on the right does not respond immediately. Barnes is tempted, in that moment, to open his eyes, to see what expression has crossed the man’s face.

He does not.

“Hydra’s Fist, her greatest asset,” the man at his right says, his voice cold in the way of zealots. “Should never have been given the opportunity to forget its place and its duty.”

The tech’s hands pause inside the metal arm. Barnes knows this because the constant, quiet sounds of metal on metal stop, not because he can identify any sort of sensation from it. “Of course,” the tech says, all levity gone.

If this was the Hydra of old — the Hydra from the 1960s, bloated on confidence and secret success after watching its machinations come to fruition — Barnes knows this tech would be dead within the hour. He doubts that that’s the case now, if only because the number of people with the specialized skill set required to repair and improve the vibranium arm is very low. But the punishment the tech has just earned, depending on where in the hierarchy the man on the right stands and who he might inform of the hint of sympathy for their assets, will be intense.

His chest rising and falling in a deep, unrestricted motion, Barnes waits for the sword to fall. He waits —

Nothing happens to the tech. No ominous words, no subtle threats.

The door to the room swings open, cold air preceding the person who enters. It swirls around Barnes before it dissipates, lingering on the bare skin of his flesh and blood arm where the reinforced restraints hold it immobile.

“What’s the damage?” The person asks, the voice that of the one who tased him in Howard’s son’s stairwell. The tech removes his hands from the arm, release mechanism untriggered.

“The arm is in remarkable condition, given the delicate nature of its interior circuitry and the lack of regular maintenance over the past several months,” the tech says. “There’s some general wear and tear at the anterior joint. The wiring’s a little tetchy at the wrist, but not enough to impact functionality. He probably didn’t even notice it glitching.”

That is correct. If the arm glitched at all, Barnes did not realize it.

“Fix it,” the would-be handler says.

“Of course,” the tech replies.

“Keep it neutralized.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Has he woken?”

“No, sir,” the one on the right answers.

“Keep me updated.”

“Of course, sir,” replies the one on the right.

The would-be handler, lithe and no doubt deadly despite their lack of stature, paces around Barnes. Their footsteps are quiet, but the air moves with them. It sends another chill over Barnes’ skin. He wonders, suddenly, what color the would-be handler’s eyes are. Would Hydra go to the trouble of making them wear contacts? Or would Hydra be confident enough in their reconditioning techniques not to bother?

The would-be handler leaves without another word, but Barnes knows they will return. They will follow their failed attempts at diplomacy and coercion with bags of normal saline, intravenous neuroinhibitors, high end narcotics, and carefully placed electrodes. They always come back, no matter their reason for leaving — no matter their reason for doing anything at all. Barnes draws them in like moths to a flame; fascinating in his stoicism and haunting in his agelessness. The actions he took on Hydra’s behalf creep into the recesses of their minds, plant the seeds of legend, leave them awed and wary.

_Heroes get remembered, but legends never die._

Barnes is tired of immortality.

He is also entirely unimpressed to have quoted a Yankee outfielder at himself, but needs must.

Twelve minutes later, Barnes gives up on playing possum when the man on his right makes note of the change in his neurological functions. He opens his eyes to stare at the ceiling. It is like almost every other ceiling he has ever stared at in Hydra facilities the world over. There is water damage in one of the corners, but the rest is uniform industrial tile — spotted and pockmarked on purpose.

The tech, unnerved despite the fact that Barnes’ eyes never turn in his direction, does not attempt to detach the arm again. Instead, he opens a panel on the inside of Barnes’ wrist and begins delicately cleaning out nearly invisible specks of dirt and debris. The man on the right, devoid of a white lab coat, notifies the would-be handler.

It takes another sixty-three minutes for someone to notice the change that Barnes feels as it washes through the soulmark, heating the thread inch by slow inch — he counts the seconds carefully in his mind. He has not looked at Rogers’ mark in over twenty-four hours, but that fact is insignificant when held up against the knowledge that the voice in his the back of his head provides. It is sure, that voice — confident despite the intangibility of his memories, their unreliability. That is a comfort.

The doors _shush_ open on their excellently oiled hinges, and the would-be handler strides in. The tech and the zealot vacated the space ten minutes prior, leaving Barnes to the oppressive buzz of the fluorescent lighting and the quiet chill of his own thoughts.

“I thought,” the would-be handler begins after observing Barnes’ nonresponsiveness for a few long, drawn-out moments. “That it was blue.”

Barnes continues to stare straight ahead, eyes locked on the imperfections that dot the ceiling above him, but his pupils contract minutely as his mind shifts from probabilities regarding the structural integrity of this facility to the person — man — standing beside the chair. Blond hair, rail thin — Barnes would bet every gun in his many hidden caches that he could count this would-be handler’s ribs if he were not wearing a collared shirt — but beyond that, Barnes’ peripheral vision provides few detail.

“An odd mixture of yellow and blue, according to the SSR’s original records,” says a woman in a white lab coat, her tone distracted as she steps through the door behind the would-be handler, then around him. Her voice very nearly causes Barnes to lose his staring contest with the ceiling tiles, but he suppresses the urge to look at her properly — sharply. A frisson of suspicion darts down his spine, but Barnes suppresses that, too.

Striding forward, the woman picks up the printouts coming from the machine attached to the many electrodes placed at Barnes’ temples and on his chest. “We’re waiting for Doctor Zola’s notes to arrive from Stanton so we can do a side-by-side visual comparison using photographs from the original experiment in 1943 and those following the asset’s reacquisition in 1944. I’m given to understand some of the mark was intact after his fall, so Doctor Zola removed it prior to integrating the asset’s first prototype prosthesis. We don’t have any hypotheses about the meaning of the thread’s color yet, whether it indicates some change in the asset himself or the asset’s soulmate, but it’s red now — ”

“It’s white,” the would-be handler interrupts.

At the corner of his vision, the woman blinks and looks up from her papers. “What?”

“It’s white,” the would-be handler repeats, gesturing to Barnes’ collarbone.

The thread has only turned white once before.

Barnes likes the familiarity of the red thread best. It is much preferable to the black. In the time before the fall, he knew the red thread better than any other. It was soothing. The black... no. Barnes knows what the black means, and he finds himself glad beyond measure that Rogers has decided to use the brain between his ears.

 _Brilliant tactician that he is_ , the voice in the back of his mind — the him from before the fall — comments.

 _Only took him eighty years_ , he replies. The voice quiets.

White, however, is the color the thread turned after Azzano. White means something that Barnes has not entirely worked out — not yet. White is dangerous, but also sends a thrill shooting through his chest that bounces back along his vertebrae, then curls up in a knot of anticipation behind his sternum.

“Monitor it,” orders the would-be handler. “Send me the video feed from this lab.”

“Yes, sir,” the woman replies as she takes a step toward Barnes, brushing strands of mousey brown hair out of her eyes. Her machine beeps at her, and she glances at the printouts in her hands again.

The would-be handler will freezeframe the footage to find the precise moments when the thread changed. He will try to determine whether or not any particular stimuli within the lab initiated the change. Barnes only found out what soulmarks were a handful of months ago, but even he can tell the would-be handler that his investigation will be useless — unless they still have video and audio surveillance on Rogers. If that is the case, they might be able to align the timestamps to confirm that Rogers is, in fact, his soulmate — and that Rogers is very, very angry.

 _Forget the Hulk_ , the voice in his head mutters. _He’s pure instinct, pure id — not a bit of fuckin’ plannin’. The one they should worry about’s Rogers._

But Hydra will always underestimate Rogers, believing him to be bound by moral statutes that they can define and neatly categorize. They lack the capacity to understand Rogers and his motivations — the lengths to which he will go to achieve one particular goal. The uncertainty that lived beneath Barnes’ skin has settled, thanks to the thread’s color change.

He might not be Rogers’ Bucky, but Barnes is Rogers’ soulmate. He remembers the rush of unadulterated anger that hit him after his time in the Air and Space Museum. He remembers the adrenaline spike on the train to New York. He knows that what he felt as he finally remembered the beginnings of his connection to Rogers — what it meant — is minuscule compared to what Rogers must have felt on the bridge and on the helicarrier, to what Rogers must be feeling now.

The thread, after all, has turned white.

 _Finally figured that one out, huh?_ The him from before the fall is unimpressed with the length of time it took him to reach this conclusion.

The would-be handler begins to circle Barnes. “They say you’ve got a smart mouth on you, when you want,” he says. “But you haven’t said a word since we deactivated the arm.”

Barnes does not respond.

The machine does not beep again.

The woman frowns.

“‘C’mon, boys. If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead. Alla you shoved in here — like shootin’ fish in a barrel.’ That’s not especially smart,” the would-be handler murmurs, continuing to pace slowly. “What’s going on inside of that head of yours, Soldier?” He asks, voice soft as he meanders into Barnes’ line of sight.

Barnes sees the woman in the lab coat pause, her eyes narrowing as she flicks a glance toward the would-be handler. Barnes does not allow himself to react, but the voice in the back of his mind whispers, _This one might be dangerous_.

 _Yes_ , he agrees. _But not dangerous enough._

 _He might listen to her, if she warns him — might knock you out all the way_ , the voice says.

 _Yes_ , Barnes repeats. _But that will not matter. Not today._

The woman does not sound the alarm.

The would-be handler bends at the waist. His eyes are brown. Barnes feels the smallest bit of lingering doubt release its hold on his throat. Reaching out, the would-be handler lets his fingertips hover over Barnes’ cheekbone, at the spot where his temple slopes into his orbital socket. “Anybody home, Soldier?”

Allowing himself to focus, Barnes catches the would-be handler’s gaze with his own. “Yes,” he answers. “Patience is a virtue.”

Straightening abruptly, the would-be handler drops his hand to his side and asks, “Patience? What are you waiting for?”

“The answer to your question is of no consequence.”

“Answer it anyway.”

Eyes following the would-be handler’s movement, Barnes smiles. It is a slow-motion stretch of muscles long out of practice, but the expression sits comfortably on his face. “No.”

The would-be handler’s eyes narrow, wrinkles forming between his brows and at the corners of his lips as they turn down. “I can make you.”

“You can try.”

There is silver in the would-be handler’s hair, just a few strands at his temples. If his eyesight were not enhanced, it is unlikely Barnes would have noticed. Still, the clues are there — the would-be handler is older than his appearance initially indicates. He is experienced enough to have some details about Barnes’ time as the Winter Soldier, but not knowledgeable enough to know that none of his handlers ever called him Soldier.

Middle management, then.

Barnes is almost certain that this man would not have had access to any of the codewords and trigger phrases the Red Room and Hydra embedded in his mind. The woman is another matter. Most of those words and phrases will no longer have any effect on him, but Barnes will never be certain that he has neutralized all of them.

The would-be handler opens his mouth, inhaling with purpose — as though he has something very important to say.

“What exactly do you think you can do to me,” Barnes interrupts, “that has not already been done? Your predecessors ensured my intimate familiarity with every form of torture available to each new generation beginning in 1945. More than once, I have pulled out my own fingernails, my own teeth; I have burned my own skin off — with a blowtorch; I have purposefully induced my own cardiac arrest; I have felt poison coursing through my veins; I have inhaled every type of chemical agent engineered in the last half-century; I have been injected with every biological weapon Hydra could get its hands on. I have drowned. I have suffocated. I have starved. I have exsanguinated. I have frozen outside a cryogenic tank.”

The would-be handler takes a step back. “Prep him,” he addresses the woman. “I want him wiped by morning.”

The woman does not move.

Barnes’ smile widens. “The thread is white,” he says, not bothering to hide his amusement. When the would-be handler does not react, Barnes raises his eyebrows and asks, “Who do you think is coming for me?”

“We found the tracker on your arm,” he scoffs.

Barnes continues to smile because he knows his soulmates now. Wilson’s paranoia, Natalia’s resourcefulness, Rogers’ tenacity — these are qualities which Hydra and its many heads cannot understand or quantify. “Run along,” Barnes says, confident in the knowledge that someone will come for him. Perhaps not before his mind is made into a blank slate once more, but he will come back from that. Sitting defiant in this chair despite his restraints, he is now all the proof that he needs. Barnes will find each fragment of his mind again, if he must. His soulmates will assist him.

Swallowing, the would-be handler turns on his heel and leaves, the door sliding open smoothly before him, and closing quietly after his exit.

“Well, that was anticlimactic,” Barnes offers, watching the woman.

She meets his eyes, blinks once, and faces her machine again.

Four minutes later, her white lab coat bells outward as she spins on her heel. “You don’t remember me,” she says as she reaches up to her temple. Pressing her fingertips there once she has his attention, her features flicker for a moment before the mesh-thin, bio-electric mask slides off of her face. “But I remember you.”

“Yelena Belova,” Barnes replies. “I remember that you shot me.”

“You repaid the favor.”

“Yes,” he says. “Are you here to kill me?”

“No,” she answers, hitting a series of buttons on the console beside her. “You know my name and my face, but not the reason I shot you, correct?”

“Correct,” he parrots.

“You opened a window for Natalia in 2001 so that she could defect,” Yelena says. The metal bands holding him in place release with a familiar, mechanical hiss. “I used you to open my own window in 2009.”

“And now you intend to repay the favor?” Barnes asks.

“No. I was paid quite a bit to infiltrate this lab,” Yelena replies. “I’m contractually obligated to release you. My job is done. Now you’re on your own.”

“What is your callsign these days?”

“I don’t have one,” she replies. She gives him a nod as she says, “Winter Soldier.” Then she turns toward the door.

“I am not him,” Barnes calls after her.

“You’ll always be him,” she says, pausing at the door. “To everyone who matters, anyway.” She pauses again, her fingers over the sensor at the side of the door, trembling as she says, “Through me pass into the painful city. Through me pass into eternal grief. Through me pass among the lost people.”

Foreboding lights on Barnes’ shoulders and he fights down the urge to sit up immediately. It is a series of words that begs a response, not a set of trigger phrases that will make him lose himself — he immediately remembers teaching those phrases to Natalia when she was a child — but they require acknowledgement. “All hope abandon, ye who enter here,” Barnes replies as he rubs his flesh and blood hand against his thigh to get blood circulating to it more quickly. This is a warning. He does not know what Yelena Belova is warning him of, but he hopes he will have a chance to find out. “Thank you for taking this job,” he says. He can do nothing for his metal arm at the moment, and its dead weight pulls uncomfortably at his spine.

“I didn’t have a choice.” Yelena does not look back at him as she says, “Tell Nata I said to stop searching.” The Russian diminutive falls from her mouth, drops into the silence after she manually opens the door, and resonates once she is gone.

Barnes stands and frowns at the lab around him, attempting to straighten his shoulders despite the cumbersome, unwieldy thing that is his vibranium arm. He freezes, though, as he hears something approaching along the hallway outside. The door closed behind Yelena, but he can still make out whatever it is that is coming toward him — coming toward him at speed. The oddly familiar rush of air being quickly displaced halts abruptly.

“ _Here_ ,” a voice says softly. It takes Barnes a moment to realize the voice is not speaking English. It is a Slavic language, and he is well familiar with many of those, but he cannot immediately place this one.

“ _You’re sure_?” Queries a second voice.

“ _Yes. This is where we need to be if we’re both going to live._ ”

Brows rising, Barnes pulls the electrodes from his skin and approaches the door cautiously. He would like to have something to wear, something more than the stripped down combat pants he has now, but he knows that his window of opportunity for escape is closing very quickly. He trusts his soulmates to make a retrieval attempt, but that does not mean he will not help himself now that that the chance has presented.

The door opens just as he presses his flesh and blood shoulder to the wall beside it, ensuring he is not visible to the people in the hall. An oddly shaped blur zips past him, scattering papers and other, lighter lab detritus behind it. It zips right back out; the odd streak of blue-white trailing behind it dissipates slowly. Before he can begin to be truly alarmed, the quiet voice that indicated a desire to live speaks again.

“Hello?” It — she, that is a female voice — says in English.

Barnes does not reply, eyes narrowed.

“I am sorry, Mister Barnes,” she keeps her voice soft. “We have not very much time. I cannot explain everything.”

“Be quick, old man,” a harsher voice interrupts. “I will not wait for you.”

“Hush, Pietro,” the girl chides. “I am Wanda. Wanda Maximoff. That was my brother. We can help you leave this place. We ask only that you take us with you when you do.”

“You know a great deal more than I think you should,” Barnes says.

“There is a great deal more that we could tell you,” Wanda says. “But for now, perhaps it is best simply to say that Hydra made us what we are, but now we see them for what _they_ are. It is not what we want to be. Not any longer.”

“You want to live, both of you,” Barnes says.

“Yes,” she says. “And the probability of that happening is highest if we go with you, rather than trying to leave on our own.”

“Fair enough,” Barnes says.

Pivoting to face the doorway, he blinks in surprise. The girl is slight, but her dark hair is very long. The boy is taller than she is, built like a runner, but his hair is colored strangely. She is holding a bundle out to him. “Clothing,” she offers when he does not accept it immediately. “Quickly, please. I will try to make your arm work again while you dress.”

Barnes reaches for the clothes only to pause with his head cocked to the side. He listens intently, head turning toward the end of the hall and the faint sound of quietly approaching feet.

“Pietro,” Wanda says, tipping her head in the direction Barnes is staring. “Please.”

“You do not touch her,” Pietro says, voice full of venom even as he disappears, becoming the streak that leaves a blue-white trail in its wake.

“I am sorry for him,” Wanda says, keeping her voice quiet.

“Why?” Barnes asks, finally taking the bundle of fabric. He unfolds it, finding his own undershirt, though not the tac vest he was wearing when Hydra recaptured him.

“He thinks the worst of everyone,” she answers. Then her eyes flash red and Barnes goes preternaturally still.

“Something tells me he has reason to think the worst of everyone,” Barnes says, remaining motionless as strands of red light work their way toward his vibranium arm.

“Some reasons, yes,” Wanda murmurs. “He learned the lessons we were taught very well. And he cannot see the things that I see.” Her eyes are glowing now, the same red that they flashed a moment ago — the same red as the wisps of light worming their way between and beneath the plates of his arm. “Please, continue dressing,” she says. “You do not need to stay still for me to work.”

“What are you doing?” Barnes asks. He feels nothing in the arm, not even when he unfolds his shirt and works that limb into the appropriate sleeve. A moment later and he has the garment on, head through the neck hole.

“Baron von Strucker and Doctor List called my abilities many things. Neuro-electric interfacing, telekinesis, mental manipulation. It is psionic in nature, yes?”

Barnes scans the hallway. “Okay,” he says, shifting to accommodate the arm’s still-dragging weight.

“It is a manipulation, but it is also more.” Wanda’s fingers curve as red light continues to drift from them, almost turning into claws. “Chaos, probability.” Looking up, her eyes still shining that eerie red, she offers him a smile. “Right now, it is the thing giving you back the use of your arm.” Something within the arm clicks audibly and Barnes feels the reverberation through the bone that anchors the whole device to his shoulder. “You are welcome,” she finishes, the light in her eyes dying as it retreats from his arm.

Barnes flexes his hand, the plates shifting as they acclimate to the movement. He pays particular attention to the anterior joint at his shoulder as well as his wrist, but he notes nothing faulty. Nothing glitches.

“Are you ready yet?” Pietro reappears, slightly breathless but otherwise unscathed.

Down the hallway from around the corner, Barnes hears the distinctive thump of a body hitting the floor. Rotating the arm from his shoulder, listening to the familiar whir and click as its interior systems reboot and its plates realign, he nods. “Yes.”

“Good.” Pietro moves to scoop Wanda up into his arms, but she swats at his shoulder.

“You do not have to carry me,” she says. “We follow his lead.”

“His lead is _slow_ ,” Pietro mutters, brows drawing down.

“Yes, but that is best for now. Safest.” Turning away from her brother, she catches Barnes’ eye. “Mister Barnes?”

“Just Barnes,” he says, casting a glance toward the end of the hallway now occupied by an unconscious body. Though, considering the look on Pietro’s face, perhaps Hydra is the entity that taught him a few of those lessons his sister said he learned, and the body is actually a corpse. Either way, he intends to move away from it. “The layout of this base is similar to several that I have been in before, but not identical.”

“How can you tell?” Pietro challenges.

Barnes nods to the door behind him. “Lab complete with neuroelectrical reconditioning equipment.” He tips his head down the hallway in the direction they will be going. “Usually the layout includes an armory, which would be in that direction and storage for a cryogenic tank. This facility does not appear to have either of those things on this hallway. It is inefficient.”

“Inefficient?” Wanda asks, hands flexings at her sides. She does not curl them into fists. Instead, she lengthens her fingers, stretching them as far as they will go before turning them so that her palms face upward. Her eyes flash red again, and Barnes sees swirls of the same color weaving between her fingers.

“Yes, inefficient,” Barnes answers. He does not offer further explanation. Doing so would run the risk of bringing his conditioning further to the forefront of his mind than it already is. “Follow me.”

Without waiting for a response, he turns and begins walking. His feet are bare, the soles aching a little with the chill of the floor. As he said, the layouts are not identical, but perhaps they are similar enough that this hallway will lead to something useful. It is just as likely to lead him into a trap, but even a trap might prove helpful so far as telling him what the facility’s security protocols are and how well its personnel are able to execute them.

Barnes and the siblings do not find a trap when they come to the end of the hall. “Despite the neuroelectrical capabilities in the lab,” Barnes says, eyeing the setup in front of him. “It is obvious this location was not intended to house me.” They enter the new room warily, staying in a small cluster at the door, but nothing untoward happens.

Power still radiates from Wanda. She seems to contain it somehow, so it does not spread farther than a foot or so away from her in any direction. He wonders if she has purposefully primed herself for battle or if her control of her powers is more instinctive.

“Or us,” she offers.

Sunlight streams in through wide, unshuttered windows, landing on empty tables in what is obviously a cafeteria or mess hall.

Pietro’s stomach growls.

Barnes slides his eyes to the side as he quirks an eyebrow at the younger man.

“What?” Pietro asks, bristling. “It takes energy to run so fast.”

“Lots of energy,” Wanda mutters dryly.

Pietro shoots her a look, lips flattened, before taking a step forward.

Holding out one hand, Barnes says, “Wait.” Pietro sends an even more irritated look in his direction, but Barnes pays it no mind. “You said telekinesis?” He asks, the question directed toward Wanda.

“Yes?” She answers, head tipping slightly to the side.

“Can you lift something off one of the tables and bring it over here?”

“Yes,” she says, nodding. A moment later, red streams from her fingers, lighting on a bottle of something green — relish, Barnes thinks. It rises, rotating slowly where it hangs in the air, only to explode a moment later. The violence is followed almost immediately by the unmistakable _thunk_ of a bullet meeting cement, the incongruously soft plop of the bottle’s contents hitting the table, and the tinkling of broken glass falling to the floor as one of the windowpanes finishes shattering.

“Was that you?” Barnes asks.

“No,” Wanda replies.

“I thought not,” Barnes nods. “Maybe they did intend to store people like us here, after all,” he murmurs.

“I could beat that,” Pietro says, eyes calculating.

Barnes considers him. The younger man does not appear to be bragging. Rather, he actually seems to be weighing the different variables that would contribute to his success or failure.

“Are you starving?” Barnes asks.

“No,” Pietro says.

“Will your functionality fall below optimal levels if you do not eat within the next three hours?”

Pietro rolls his eyes. “No.”

“Then gathering provisions from this location is unnecessary.”

“I could  _beat_ that,” Pietro repeats.

“Taking that risk would be reckless,” Barnes replies. He considers the younger man for a long moment, then tips his chin toward the broken window. “The guns are automated, most likely set to fire when their motion sensors are triggered. They would not have fired at a condiment bottle otherwise. There will be no human error, no one pausing to question whether or not they actually saw what they think they saw. It is your life to risk. Stopping you is not my responsibility or my goal. However, I will not wait for you, if you decide to do something foolish and sustain injuries.”

Turning, Barnes begins making his way down the hall toward the next set of doors. He suppresses the urge to roll his eyes as he hears the tell-tale pop of air being rapidly displaced. A moment later, he turns around to catch the protein bar and bottle of water Pietro tosses at him. The sound of multiple bullets breaking the remaining windows and embedding themselves in concrete echoes from the cafeteria as they move on.

“That was stupid,” Barnes says.

“You do not know what I am capable of,” Pietro replies.

“I will never know what you are capable of if you get yourself killed,” Barnes says. He wonders if the younger man can see the patina of red energy flickering over his skin — if he knows that his sister did something to ensure his recklessness did not actually cost him his life. The energy winks out entirely just after he notes it, and Wanda remains silent as she keeps pace with them.

With a shrug, Barnes opens the protein bar, eats it in two bites, and grimaces. “Ugh,” he says.

“What?” Wanda asks, eyeing her own bar suspiciously.

“That tastes terrible,” Barnes replies.

Pietro, mouth full of one bar even as he tears the wrapper off of a second, says, “It’s not so bad.” The words are garbled, but Barnes can understand them easily enough.

“It’s not a fish taco,” Barnes replies. He has obviously been spoiled by the superior — if obsessive — culinary choices Wilson offers.

“You like them very much?” Wanda asks. “Fish tacos?”

“Yes,” Barnes says, cracking open his bottle of water. He drains it, suddenly realizing that he has not had anything to drink in what must be twelve hours.

“I wondered,” she says, opening her own bottle of water after dropping the wrapper for her protein bar to the floor. “Is it a mark? On your back?”

“Yes,” Barnes replies. He considers his empty bottle, then bends to place it on the floor as well. He puts the cap next to it, then his own protein bar wrapper.

“So... someone shares your love of fish tacos.” She smiles. “Do you like them because of the mark? Or did it come afterward?”

“After,” Barnes says.

“We have had our marks all our lives,” Wanda says. “They have always been the same. It was... controversial?”

Lifting her hair off the nape of her neck, she pulls it to the side and leans forward to show Barnes her soulmark. It is intricate, a twisting tangle of multi-hued blue that almost looks like smoke. As he watches, it seems to shimmer — iridescent in a way that he recognizes is uncommon for soulmarks. He knows immediately what it reminds him of, so he glances toward Pietro.

The younger man crams the second protein bar into his mouth with ill grace, carelessly drops his trash, then takes several quick steps forward so that Barnes can see the back of his neck, too. His mark is identical to his sister’s, but shaded in reds.

“You two are twins?” Barnes asks.

“Yes,” Wanda answers.

“I can see why that would be controversial,” he says. Barnes had done a lot of reading on soulmarks after his first one showed up. He knows there are all kinds of taboos in a lot of cultures about them, particularly when siblings or close family members have the really dynamic ones.

Wanda shrugs easily, like brushing away what must have been years of awkwardness is simple.

Pietro glowers, though. “People make stupid assumptions.”

“Agreed,” Barnes replies, pausing outside the next door. He listens carefully, but he hears nothing from within. More likely than not, there is some type of soundproofing involved in this building’s construction. Noting the way Pietro positions himself in front of his sister — and the fact that a red nimbus is rising behind him — Barnes reaches for the doorknob.

“Wait,” Wanda says.

Barnes stops. “What?”

“Where are all of the people?” She asks.

“Where were they before, when you got to the lab?”

“Elsewhere,” she says, her tone vague.

“She made them not see us,” Pietro says.

“Can you do that again?” Barnes asks her.

“If I get to them before they see us,” she answers. “I do not think I will have that chance.”

Barnes fights the urge to sigh. They mean well, he thinks, but they are obviously untrained. There is a part of him that still belongs solely to the Winter Soldier. It urges him to leave them behind. They are a hindrance. They will slow him down. The probability of recapture grows larger the longer they linger here. The rest of Barnes gives the Winter Soldier in his mind an exasperated look before turning back toward Wanda.

“You can shield things — people?” Barnes asks, peering around Pietro so he can see her face.

“Yes,” she says.

The confirmation of what he saw is appreciated, so Barnes nods. “If there are people behind this door — ”

“The probability is very high that there are,” Wanda interrupts. “Many of them.”

“If there are,” Barnes continues, “Shield yourself and your brother.”

“What about you?”

Barnes quirks a small smile. “Focus on defending yourselves. Worrying about the two of you will distract me.”

“What do I do?” Pietro asks, tone almost hostile.

“Keep them from getting to her,” Barnes replies.

Pietro gives him a truly unimpressed look, but Barnes has no room in his mind to fret about what the younger man might think of that direction at the moment. He has no idea what might or might not be on the other side of this door, he has no weapons, he has no tactical gear, and he has no shoes. He does have the arm, but the only real advantage that gives him at the moment is strength. He will have the element of surprise, though.

Of course, cross the strength with the surprise and you get a completely mangled doorknob, ready for throwing as soon as the sole of his bare foot hits it and causes it to crash into the wall. The door’s hinges do not give out completely, but they do suffer minor damage, allowing Barnes to yank the door free from the frame entirely. It is remarkably light, considering it appeared to be metal. It is not, in fact, made of metal. Rather, where the hinges ripped off, paint flakes away to reveal some type of clear, hard substance.

“Great,” Barnes mutters. “They’re gonna shoot me through a fuckin’ plastic door. Ugh.”

Using the hole where the knob once sat, Barnes turns the door into a mobile shield of sorts, not expecting much from it, and begins his assault on the Hydra personnel inside the room. The men and women there are shocked. Apparently, they did not expect the Winter Soldier, lacking all his gear and weaponry, to attack them with a bent doorknob and its door.

 _But needs must_ , Barnes thinks to himself again, bracing for the first barrage of bullets. It does not come. Instead, a trail of blue-white-red whips through the room. A moment later, seven handguns spin gently on the table closest to Barnes. He decides then and there that having the twins on his side in this instance is not, in fact, the handicap he thought it would be.

Getting to the desk with the array of handguns, all of which he is familiar with on an instinctive level, Barnes braces his door-shield with one knee and his vibranium arm, then clicks the safety on for three of the guns and shoves them into various pockets on his combat pants. Two more go into his waistband once their safeties are on, and a final one stays in his hand, ready to take out anyone he deems a high enough threat.

It takes the Hydra office personnel a moment to regroup, startled as they are. This is a fact of which Barnes takes full advantage. The first four people who make moves toward him go down with blown out knees or elbows. Then the bullets begin to fly from the other direction. Pietro apparently did not acquire every gun the people in the room possessed — which, fair enough. These might be white collar workers, but they are _Hydra’s_ white collar workers. No doubt each of them is trained in some form of deadly combat, whether that be hand-to-hand or riflery, knife throwing or bo staffs.

Barnes expects this to be a very interesting fight.

He is proven correct when the next spray of bullets actually impacts his makeshift shield. He fully expects to be hit by fragments of whatever clear material the door is made of as it shatters, if not the pieces of lead and its ruined cartridges themselves. Instead, it holds firm and the projectiles ricochet back toward the people who fired them. One man goes down with just such a bullet lodged in his abdomen — messy death, that. Barnes would feel sympathy for the man, he is sure, if the man had not chosen to work for Hydra.

Deciding to keep the door in its unexpectedly appropriate role of ‘shield’ for the time being, Barnes eyes the items on the desk nearest him. He could continue to use the gun, but he has a limited number of bullets at the moment and no real idea of where he might be able to restock or find better weapons. Bracing the door with his flesh and blood hand, he flicks on the safety and tucks the handgun into his waistband. For added stability, he pushes his shoulder against the door as well, then reaches to the left to grasp the hinged tray of a Laserjet printer.

The tray comes off easily, allowing Barnes to throw it with eerie accuracy at a woman attempting to flank him. The rest of the printer comes apart in chunks of cracked plastic, its edges jagged and sharp. Each subsequent piece finds its way unerringly toward a Hydra bottom feeder — whether it brains them into unconsciousness or slices something vital open, Barnes does not actually care. His goal is simple: take down as many of them as possible before they manage to overrun him. While they might not have superior fighting experience, they have superior numbers. And there has never been a lone hero who could not be overwhelmed by sheer numbers — bodies piling up around them, making movement difficult.

These Hydra personnel are expendable, just like those he heard the would-be handler talking about in the stairwell when they recaptured him. Hydra does not value the lives of its many cogs and wheels. They are simply people to be stepped on by those with the right bloodlines as they climb to the to — to becoming one of Hydra’s many heads.

Barnes concentrates on yanking the toner cartridge out of the hole he has made in the printer. With one particularly vicious twist, he shatters the toner’s casing before throwing it in a graceful arc toward the men and women now falling back before him and his very bulletproof door.

Barnes finds himself feeling an inordinate amount of fondness for the door, but he suppresses that in an effort to continue dismantling the printer. When he runs out of pieces to throw, he peers through one of the bullet-bred dents in the door’s paint. The toner cartridge exploded upon impact. He can see cyan and magenta drifting through the air. The Hydra office personnel seem somewhat stunned, but they do appear to be regaining their wits.

More’s the pity.

Reaching for a heavy duty stapler, he throws that next. The force of impact causes the man he threw it at to stumble backward. He trips over one of his coworkers and goes down. A three-hole punch follows almost immediately and, with some surprise, Barnes realizes that he is actually enjoying himself.

His arm glitches. Then it freezes outright, the gears inside grinding to a stop with a high-pitched, unpleasantly sharp sound. Before he can begin to truly worry, Wanda’s red power engulfs his mechanical arm, sinks into it and rights whatever wrong the higher ups in this facility attempted to remotely instigate.

“Thank you,” he calls over his shoulder.

“You are welcome,” she calls back. And then bolts of brilliant red begin to rain down on the Hydra personnel still ranged before him. They are fewer in number now, many of them covered in multicolored toner from the printer cartridge, but these few appear to be the truly dangerous ones of the lot.

Now is the time for bullets.

Between the three of them, Wanda’s bolts of red do the most damage, but Pietro does an excellent job of pulling attention away from Barnes long enough for Barnes to shoot the operatives in their throats. He considers attempting to leave a few of the Hydra office workers alive, since he believes Rogers might appreciate the gesture, but he has no idea when — or even if — Rogers will get here. It is a better plan, more efficient and less likely to end in an ambush after the fact, to ensure that all of the people currently attempting to incapacitate him are non-functional. So that is what he does.

Lowering the gun after the last Hydra minion falls, Barnes glances back over his shoulder to check on the twins. A cloud of red energy surrounds them both where they stand just inside the doorway. Wanda’s hands are raised, her palms facing outward as though she has to physically prop up her telekinetic energy shield. She looks tired. So does Pietro, who is leaning against the wall near his sister. The younger man’s hands are braced on his knees and his breathing is uneven — ragged.

Wanda said that Hydra made them what they are. It occurs to Barnes that they have, more than likely, been augmented on a genetic level. Or they are mutants. He frowns, some piece of information tugging at the back of his mind. Filing the niggling, elusive feeling away for future consideration, he lifts the door an inch or so off the floor and takes a step forward, only to wince and stop immediately.

“Ow,” Barnes says. “Just a suggestion, but the next time you break someone out of a secure Hydra facility, bring them shoes in addition to a shirt.”

Before either Wanda or Pietro can respond, before Barnes can bend down to remove the piece of plastic stabbing the arch of his foot, a high-pitched shriek surrounds them and the lights flicker — every single godawful, fluorescent bulb in the room dims before flaring back to brighter life.

There are no windows in this room, only the door through which he entered and the one opposite, but Barnes knows something is coming. He has time only to face the twins, to see that Wanda’s shield has completely engulfed Pietro, and to acknowledge the voice in the back of his mind as it murmurs, _At least they’ll make it._ Then the lights in the ceiling burst, some sort of electrical charge arcing from their frayed wires and filaments through their plastic covers.

The computer screens all fracture a moment later and the scent of burning electronics fills the air, spiraling upward in trails of pale, acrid smoke. The high-pitched shriek continues, only growing louder as loose items vibrate off the tables around him. Barnes can hear nothing but that sound. He can see Wanda’s lips moving, knows she is saying something, but the smoke is rising around him quickly and, though he is attempting to walk toward her, to retreat out of the death trap this room has become, he can feel his arm beginning to resonate with the shriek as well.

 _Like a tuning fork_ , the voice in the back of his mind supplies.

Barnes would agree, but his teeth hurt suddenly and his arm is surrounded by red light — Wanda’s light, he thinks. That is odd.

Falling to his knees, Barnes feels the better-than-plastic door thud against his back, but he cannot focus on that. He cannot focus on anything as the shriek’s pitch rises, doing something unpleasant to his eardrums. His vibranium arm no longer functions and his shoulder is hot where it attaches beneath the scarred flesh and connective metal plating. Barnes presses his flesh and blood hand over the cloth covering his collarbone beneath which Rogers’ spool sits, its string radiant white.

 _Shame_ , he thinks. _It’s a shame I’ll never get to figure out what that actually means_.

Ceiling tiles fall around him, breaking over the door as dust rains down on Barnes’ head. It catches fire in places, particularly on the desks where the electronics are still sparking. He thinks it would not matter so much if the shriek would stop, but it continues. Something wet drips down from his earlobe to his jaw as he tilts his head. Squeezing his eyes shut, he takes a breath of smoke-clogged air, resigned to his fate.

He is tired. He is tired of immortality. It will be nice to rest. The world shifts sideways, its axis tipping backward, and Barnes allows himself to let go — for once in his life, he will not fight what is about to happen.

 

* * *

 

Thor didn’t mean to blow up the building. He was really apologetic about it, after the fact. Not that his apologies had any real impact on Steve, whose face was now sheet-white.

“Jesus,” Clint mutters, shaking his head in an attempt to clear some of the debris from it. He’d been up on one of the buildings near the facility’s entrance when Thor called down the lightning in an attempt to open the way for Wilson, Steve, and Tasha. Only something’d gone wrong, something that shouldn’t’ve gotten hit with electricity had gotten hit, cause the next thing he knew there was a noise the likes of which he’d never heard and everything around him was crumbling as glass exploded and shit caught fire.

That would’ve been bad enough, sure — but after that, something else happened. There was a flash of light that had nothing to do with Thor, and the buildings that made up the main part of the Hydra base were enveloped by a sphere of sickly-colored, yellow-green light. It was so bright that Clint couldn’t look at it for more than a few seconds, but that was more than long enough to see that everything the light touched basically disintegrated.

Walking slowly, still blinking a few black spots of residual light blindness out of his eyes, Clint approaches Steve like he would a dangerous, skittish animal. The shield’s strapped to his arm, but his arm’s hanging limply at his side. There are a few Hydra personnel on the ground around them, but they’d barely gotten started on their defensive movements when things went pear-shaped.

Wilson’s got his guns in his hands, but they’re also hanging loosely — his fingers aren’t even on the triggers. His mask is turned toward the crater where the buildings used to be, but he’s not taking steps to get closer than he is already.

Tasha pulls the comm link out of her ear — it’s useless at this point, anyway — and holsters her own guns.

Sam glides to a rough landing several meters away. He didn’t have to pull his ’chute, but Clint’d bet his wings have shorted out, just like everything else they’ve got that has circuitry. When Sam just shucks the whole pack, wings still extended, Clint knows he would’ve won that bet.

Tony thumps down a moment later, his suit somehow still operational. “I’ve got some weird energy signals coming from inside the pit,” he says.

Clint gives him an unimpressed look.

Rhodes hits the ground beside Tony, his landing less balanced. He doesn’t fall over, though, so good for him.

Thor, who’d landed just as the sphere of light appeared, walks toward the edge of the crater it left behind. “I can make out nothing,” he says.

If he was close enough, Clint’d smack the demigod. As it is, he just pulls his own comm out of his ear and tosses it on the ground. “What kinds of signals, Stark?”

“Don’t know,” Tony answers, the suit’s mechanics distorting his voice. “High energy, like spikes, but they’ve got a baseline that’s normal. I’d say they’re signs of life, but I can’t be sure from here. The suit’s not totally fried, but J’s assuring me it’s definitely not functioning at full capacity, either.”

“I’m getting the same thing,” Rhodes offers.

“Call Maria,” Steve says. His voice is a little hoarse, but Clint’ll forgive him for that because he just watched the building his best friend — his soulmate — was in get incinerated. “We don’t know what that light might’ve been or what it did. Could’ve been radiological.”

“Nah,” Tony says. “Nothing radioactive’s registering for J. Those meters are still working fine.”

“So all you can tell us is that you’re seeing some weird energy spikes that might be signs of life — but also might not be — in that big-assed hole over there,” Clint summarizes.

“Well, when you put it that way,” Tony mutters. The suit shifts suddenly, stance widening as various weapons come to life along its shoulders and upper arms. Tony aims his hands toward the crater. “Uh, I can also tell you that the anomalous energy spikes are moving,” he says.

Rhodes’ suit doesn’t respond as quickly as Tony’s, but that ridiculous gun on his shoulder twists around at an impressive angle to back the genius up.

Thor is closest to the crater, so he sees whatever’s coming first.

“Peace,” he calls, but he receives no response. He also doesn’t get blasted by whatever the energy readings are coming from, so Clint decides that he’s gonna take that as a positive sign.

That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have his bow up and a couple arrows nocked, of course.

“We mean you no harm,” Thor continues.

Rather than the eerie silence that always lingers after any type of major catastrophe, they hear the unmistakable sound of someone gasping. If he had to hazard a guess, Clint’d say that whoever’s doing the gasping is in a lot of pain.

Just then, a flash of red light appears through the smoke and settling dust.

It’s a woman. She looks pretty bedraggled, her hair in snarls and her clothes all dusty, but she’s got a death grip on two people. One person’s hanging limply, but the other’s holding onto her arm and doesn’t look like he intends to let go any time in the near future.

As soon as they’re over mostly solid ground, the red light flickers out and the girl drops. She tries to maintain her hold on the limp body, but she stumbles. The guy who’s conscious somehow manages to not only catch himself but be standing in just the right place to catch the woman. A moment later, though, they both collapse to their knees beside the unconscious man.

Clint can hear them both breathing from where he’s standing, farther back than anyone else, but he’s got the eyes to make out details more quickly than the others.

“Hey,” he says, lowering his bow a little. “It’s that quick little bastard from Sokovia!”

Tasha’s face blanks and she pulls both her guns again in one smooth move, which is sort of the opposite of what Clint intended. Oops.

Steve, however, has honed in on the body lying beside the pair.

“Bucky!”

Of course that’s Barnes. Why wouldn’t it be Barnes? 

Exhaling a rough breath, Clint puts his arrows back in his quiver and slings his bow over his shoulder. Thor gets to the group on the ground before anyone else, but hangs his hammer on his belt and holds his hands up to show he doesn’t intend to hurt them. “Peace, young ones,” he says.

Steve doesn’t bother trying to say anything, just runs forward like an idiot, because that’s his MO. He barely gets the shield up in time to deflect a bolt of red light, which ricochets off the vibranium and hits a wall that’s still partially standing. The girl’s got one hand up, palm out like Tony when he’s getting ready to shoot off his repulsor beams, but the other’s clutching the speedy guy’s collar and her knuckles have gone white. She whimpers.

“Steve, stop,” Tasha orders.

Steve doesn’t stop. He does, however, slow down.

The speedster reaches up and takes hold of her wrist, lowering her hand as he murmurs to her quietly. There’s no way for Clint to know what they’re saying, he’s not close enough, but Thor says, “We thank you for returning our friend to us. We would gladly aid you in return, if you will allow it.”

Clint’s not sure Tasha’s on the same page as Thor, though. He can tell from the set of her shoulders that she’ll shoot either of the two unfamiliars if given half a reason. He’s surprised she hasn’t fired off a couple shots already, actually.

Red light pools in the girl’s palm, then spreads out slowly until it surrounds all three of the people on the ground.

“Those’re the energy spikes, in case anybody’s wondering,” Tony says.

“You are the Avengers,” the speedy dude says.

“Yeah,” Clint replies. “We’ve met.”

The guy doesn’t respond immediately, but his eyes narrow. Then he shrugs. “You are not dead. So.”

“Is he alive?” Steve asks, finally coming to a stop outside the shield of red.

“Barnes?” The speedster asks. Then he shrugs. “My sister says yes. All of her probabilities were confusing, but she thinks I got to him quickly enough.”

“Oh,” the woman says. “Oh. Do not be stupid, Petryk. We are not safe yet. Not both of us.”

Steve reaches out and rests one gloved palm and its bare fingertips against the red light. Staring intently at the motionless figure inside the shield, he stays quiet for several long seconds. “He’s breathing,” he says finally. Turning to look over his shoulder, he catches sight of Tasha and says, “Put the guns away.”

“No,” Tasha replies.

“Natasha,” Steve begins.

“It’s very nice that they saved your soulmate, Steve,” she interrupts. “But he nearly killed mine.”

The unfamiliars remain suspiciously quiet.

“But they didn’t,” Steve points out.

“Not for lack of trying,” Tasha replies.

“Hey, but like he said — I’m not dead. So I figure it’s about even,” Clint interjects. “I mean, really. I’m the one who should be all upset and whatnot. But it’s all good. Seriously.” He sidles up to Tasha, steps just a little bit farther into her line of sight. Switching to Russian, he murmurs, “ _What’s this? Revenge isn’t usually your style._ ”

“ _They were working with Hydra before. They could be still. If they triggered him, if they can control him_ — ”

Clint immediately sees where she’s going with that. He looks over his shoulder at the pair of kids — because that’s what they are. They’re just kids. So he looks at them, gives them a thorough once-over, and then says, “ _They look like they’ve been on a pretty rough ride. Not exactly Hydra’s usual pick for handlers._ ”

The silence hangs for another few, long moments, but finally Tasha flicks the safety on both of her guns and holsters them.

The woman’s red shield drops. “Now,” she says. “Now you will live, Petryk.” The words are soft, almost drifting out of her as she curls into the speedy guy’s side. Her eyes are closed when she says in perfect Russian, “ _Your sister dances beautifully. Not as beautifully as you, though. No one in the world dances with bullets and blades like Natalia Alianova Romanova._ ”

Tasha’s back goes ramrod straight and her fingers spasm, like she wants to reach for her guns again, but knows that it won’t do her any good. “ _But your sister must watch her feet. They’ve laid traps everywhere. They’re just waiting for her to take one wrong step. Then they will have her, just as they have him._ ” The woman pauses, then continues in Russian that’s turned sloppy and slurred, “ _Find her soon, Nata. Almost all of her futures end tragically if you don’t_.” She takes a sharp breath, almost another gasp, before whispering, “We are sorry,” in accented English. “Sorry for Sokovia. We did not know.”

Steve’s on his knees now, having completely disregarded the verbal sparring going on beside him in favor of turning Barnes over and pulling him into his lap. He was right — Barnes is breathing.

He also looks like somebody put him through a fucking meat grinder. Maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration — though he does have blood on his face. It looks like he started bleeding from his ears and didn’t have a chance to wipe any of it away. He’s also covered in the same dust and debris that the woman and the speedster are.

“Where’re his shoes?” Clint asks, frowning at the bloody sole of one of Barnes’ feet. “Nevermind. I’ll go get Bruce. And call Maria.”

Bruce manages to check Barnes over without incident while Clint calls Maria. They’re lucky their jet was far enough away that whatever electrical storm took place didn’t knock out its comms. It did, however, do something weird to the combustion engine. Then there’s nothing left to do but wait for Maria to arrive with backup medical equipment and Stark Industries employees who are actually not-so-secret former-SHIELD agents. He’s pretty sure he catches a flash of Bobbi and Lance as he helps Steve carry Barnes onto the new jet so they can get home.

The woman, Wanda — she only flinches away from Bruce once. She apologizes immediately, saying, “It is only there is so much anger inside of you.” Bruce gives her a quizzical, almost rueful glance, but carries on making sure her minor contusions are tended. Her brother Pietro doesn’t manage to sit still long enough for a proper examination, but somehow Clint’s not surprised.

Their jet is crowded, but nobody wants to consider breaking their group up for separate flights and it’s not like they’re anywhere near the weight limit, anyway. So Clint flies them back to the tower, tired but pleased with the way the mission went. It’s a quiet flight — so quiet.

Clint figures they’re due for some peace after all this.

 

* * *

 

Barnes wakes slowly, sound filtering into his consciousness before anything else. He hears the quiet murmur of voices, but the sound is soothing rather than grating. It does not cause panic to shoot through him, his heart rate does not jump. Next, he registers sunlight on his closed eyelids. He can tell that it is real sunlight, not a light bulb, because the red tint through his skin is a comforting presence — and there is no low-grade humming of electricity.

A memory drifts to the surface: clouds passing over the sun as he spread out on scraggly grass. Shadows and sunlight. Somewhere, someone was laughing. To his right, he heard the distinctive scritch-scratch of Steve’s pencil against paper. Probably, he was doodling in the newspaper margins again, but Bucky was warm and content — it was nice out, early spring. That sweet spot where the weather was good enough that they could go outside but the pollen hadn’t started to fill the air so thick it’d mess with Steve’s asthma.

Barnes pulls himself away from the memory, suddenly sure that he will be able to find it again, if he wants. That is a new feeling. He likes it.

He hears footsteps moving away from him. A door closes nearby.

Something creaks beside him on his right.

For a moment, he is disoriented as he hears the same scritch-scratch in reality that he did in the memory. That is when memory returns — recent memory. That is when it occurs to him to wonder about the twins, about where he is, about who is beside him.

His heart rate does jump at that, the monitors nearby beeping faster.

The scritch-scratch pauses, but then picks up again. “You’re in New York,” the person beside him says.

Barnes knows the voice, he knows the timbre and pitch and inflection. He knows how it sounds when the man speaking is in pain, when he laughs, when frustration eats at him from the inside out.

“Wilson wanted to take you back to your safe house, but Bruce vetoed that. He said you weren’t well enough to be without skilled medical supervision yet. But if you’re waking up, you can make that call for yourself,” the voice continues.

Breathing slowly, making himself focus on the way his ribs expand as he inhales, Barnes silently counts to ten.

“So yeah. This is the tower. You’re uh... well, this is a spare apartment. Tony’s got ’em all kitted out. I’ve got one, but I didn’t want to assume — to make you uncomfortable.” There’s an awkward pause before the voice continues, “Wilson should be back soon. He just went to get something to eat. I guess Tony bought a food truck? Meaty Burritos or something. It’s parked downstairs on the street corner. Your Wilson’s pretty obsessed with tacos.”

Barnes opens his eyes. The ceiling is nice — smooth, painted a light shade of something warm that he cannot identify. Whatever the color is, it is not the cheap, speckled tile Hydra uses in its facilities.

“Where’s the door?” So far as his opening words upon achieving consciousness in Rogers’ presence for the first time in seven decades go... well, Barnes supposes they could have been worse. At least it was a coherent sentence and not a groan of sense-memory pain.

Rogers shifts, pushing the chair in which he sits farther away from the bed. “On your left,” he says.

“No,” Barnes replies. He turns his head to look at Rogers properly “The door. From the facility.”

“There... wasn’t a door?” Rogers offers. “I mean, the whole place kind of... Tony says it imploded into a mini black hole or something.”

“Oh,” Barnes says, brows drawing together as he frowns. “I liked that door.”

Rogers is clearly baffled.

“It was see-through, but bulletproof,” Barnes says. “Lightweight. Helpful. Fortuitous.”

Rogers opens his mouth only to pause without saying anything before closing it again.

“There’s a story,” Barnes says.

“A story?”

“A ghost story. The woman in white.”

“Oh,” Rogers says, blinking. “I don’t know that one.”

“She seduces unfaithful men. They say she says, ‘I can never go home.’”

“Why?”

“Wilson says it’s because she killed her children,” Barnes answers. Then, he continues, “I was a ghost.”

“Buck — ”

Barnes interrupts him. This is important. Rogers has to know. “I killed — so many people. So many — children — and Howard. I killed Howard.”

“I know.”

“I remember _pieces_ of home,” Barnes says, eyes flicking toward the ceiling before returning to the other man.

“Me, too,” Rogers says. He sounds so incredibly sad.

“But I can never _go_ home.”

“I can’t, either, Buck. Home is gone.”

“Home got torn down in 1952. I checked,” Barnes corrects.

He thinks of Brooklyn. He thinks of the apartment they shared there. Fragments of memories come when he calls. The voice in the back of his mind does not have to pipe up to offer guidance — not this time. Barnes knows his recollections are incomplete, but the knowledge does not make him feel brittle and breakable now.

He thinks of the rooftop where Wilson left him the dismembered body of a Hydra official by way of introduction.

He thinks of the innumerable safe houses he has lived in over the last year.

He thinks of how very, very tired he is.

“What does this — ” Rogers begins.

It seems Barnes intends to not let Rogers finish many thoughts today. He interrupts again, this time with, “Why’d you lie?”

It takes Rogers a moment to regroup, to follow the change of topic. “Lie?”

“In the interview,” Barnes clarifies.

“I’ve done a lot of interviews, Buck,” Rogers says, voice cautious.

Barnes knows that. He watched several of them after Sokovia. Wilson helped him find a few featuring what he called Cap’s ‘I’m Disappointed In You And All Your Life Choices’ frown. Barnes had to agree. It was an impressive frown, particularly when Rogers clenched his jaw in disapproval. So he says, “The one for SHIELD. They asked — and you said no. You said you didn’t dream.”

“What?” But Rogers is exceedingly intelligent. He realizes what Barnes is referencing before Barnes can offer further clarification. “You mean right after I woke up — after the ice.” Several emotions flit over Rogers’ face. Barnes wonders if it bothers him, knowing he saw the interview. He thinks perhaps Rogers did not know he was being filmed. Or, if he did, Barnes believes those types of interviews are not meant for general audiences. He thinks Rogers might have preferred the interview to stay private.

“Yes,” he confirms.

Rogers shakes his head. “I didn’t lie.”

“Yes, you did. Why?”

“I didn’t lie, Buck,” Rogers says, frowning now.

“You did — you had to. I know.”

Putting his pad of not-quite-blank paper on the floor, Rogers tucks the pencil he was using behind his ear and leans his elbows on his knees. This brings him closer to Barnes’ prone form, but not in a threatening way. “How do you know?”

“Because I dreamed. I know I dreamed. Every time.”

“Every time?” Barnes wonders if the note he hears in Rogers’ question is dread. He thinks it might be — or well-worn anger.

“Every time they put me back into cryostasis.”

“You — ” Rogers cuts himself off this time, leaving a silence that Barnes decides to fill.

“I dreamed. And it was — why’d you lie?”

“I didn’t!” Rogers says, his frustration evident. “Buck, I didn’t lie. Or — I don’t remember dreaming, at least.”

Something in Barnes’ chest eases at that. “You don’t remember?”

“No. Never remembered my dreams much, anyway.” There’s a long pause before Rogers asks, “Jesus — _every_ time?”

“Yes.”

Rogers asks, “What’d you dream about?”

Barnes does not want to answer. He does not want to reply. He does not want to reveal the bits and pieces of himself that his broken mind managed to hide from his handlers — to salvage after every wipe when they thought his brain was beyond functioning. Still, Rogers asked. Barnes finds that he does not want to shut Rogers out — not now.

Raising one hand, Barnes sighs. He presses his fingertips against the stretch of skin between his brows. It hurts enough that he rubs the heel of his palm into his eye, but that offers him no real relief. “You,” he says, looking at the ceiling — refusing to bear witness to Rogers’ reaction. “I dreamed about you.”

More silence. Barnes turns partially away so the temptation to look at Rogers is not quite so great. He feels the urge to say more now, the syllables piling up into words and then sentences at the back of his throat. His mind and his vocal chords are conspiring against him, letting the thoughts bubble up and then — and then what?

“Small things,” Barnes says, voice suddenly ragged. He drops his hand, but still does not look at Rogers. “Small dreams and details, but. But they feel — important.”

“Hey,” Rogers says. He reaches out to rest his hand on the blanket near Barnes’ hip. “Hey, I’m glad. I mean — they were. Were they good? The dreams?”

“Yes,” Barnes replies. “I think.” He preempts whatever Rogers might have to say in response to that by moving his own hand down and to the side. It was on his stomach after he let it drop from his forehead, but now it rests on the mattress very near Rogers’. “Peppermints,” he says. “I liked those. But you liked lemon drops. I dreamed I spent a nickel on lemon drops and you got mad at me. But then you got sick.”

“Fall of... ’27, maybe,” Rogers offers, quirking a smile. “I knew you slipped me most of those. Just couldn’t argue.”

“Too sick,” Barnes confirms.

“Wonder why you dreamed about that,” Rogers says.

Barnes is looking at their hands on the blanket — close, but not touching. Not yet. “I dreamed in memories,” he says. Shifting his fingertips, he watches as they brush the side of Rogers’ thumb.

“There’re worse things to dream about,” Rogers says, his thumb twitching like it wants to move.

“It’s the only way I could remember anything,” Barnes says. “They wiped me every time they thawed me out.”

“I’m sorry, Buck,” Rogers says. “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

The voice in the back of Barnes’ mind rolls forward, slow and lazy now. It says, _Better me than you_. Barnes does not think Rogers would appreciate the sentiment, but he has never been more in agreement with his past self than he is in that moment.

“Do you regret being here?” That is not the question Barnes intended to ask, but as the voice from before the fall settles down in the back of his head again, he thinks it was a good one.

Rogers’ face twists and Barnes’ fingers still where they have come to rest on the other man’s knuckles. “Sometimes,” Rogers says. “Not now — not right now. But before. Before I knew people, before you were here. Sometimes I wished they’d never found me. Sometimes, I wished I was still frozen solid somewhere in the Arctic. It would’ve been easier than being awake — than being alone.”

Barnes takes a slow breath.

“I don’t regret what I did that got me here. I regret that train, though,” Rogers continues. “I regret... y’know, I thought about it. Back then — I thought maybe you were my soulmate. And I didn’t say anything because you seemed so damn sure you weren’t.”

“Why would I be?” Barnes asks. He shifts his hand to the side, then stretches his fingers out so that they lay between Rogers’ on the bed.

“Why _wouldn’t_ you have been?” Rogers replies, brow furrowing.

Barnes aligns his knuckles with Rogers’, curls his fingertips inward a bit so that they match properly. “I don’t know,” he says. “Cause it was too dangerous, maybe. Probably mostly cause I was being stupid.”

The door behind them swings open with a bang, the sound reverberating through the room. Rogers practically jumps out of his skin, his hand jerking. He starts to pull away, but Barnes clamps his knuckles down, one to either side of almost all of Rogers’. He holds the other man’s hand there, not letting him go because there is something visceral in him, something that resides in the parts of his brain that the electricity from the chair could never reach, that does not like the thought of Rogers leaving him behind.

 _Not again_ , the voice in the back of his mind whispers, churning a slow circle of muddy thoughts out in the process.

“Oh Goddammit,” Wilson says, freezing.

“Your technique lacks subtlety,” Barnes comments.

Wilson sighs like this declaration disappoints him. “Don’t you two know anything about roommate etiquette?”

“Yes,” Barnes replies. “It involves knocking.”

“Whatevah, whatevah — I do what I want,” Wilson says.

Turning his head to look at the mercenary, Barnes frowns. “Why are you wearing the mask?”

“Mixed company, Sarge.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Barnes replies. His knuckles have turned white where they’re gripping Rogers’, though Rogers has not actually attempted to extract his hand again.

“It is what it is,” Wilson says, shrugging.

“Stop being ridiculous,” Barnes replies.

“That’s what I keep telling him,” exclaims a female voice from somewhere behind Wilson.

“Nope,” Wilson says, stepping aside so a curvy brunette with very red lips and impressive cheekbones can actually sidle into the room. “Darcy-mark, meet Sarge-mark,” he continues. “Sarge, this is Darcy.”

“Coffee cups,” Barnes says, seemingly apropos of nothing.

“That was a rough week,” Darcy says, nodding.

“Yes,” Barnes nods.

Silence descends.

“Well,” Darcy says, voice cheerfully breaking the mildly awkward silence. “We’ll just be going now.” If Wilson lacks subtlety, Darcy lacks even the interest in being subtle at all. She nudges the mercenary in the kidney and gestures toward where Barnes’ fingers are still clamped around Rogers’.

Rogers, who has not said a single word since Wilson and Darcy appeared.

Wilson fends off another attack of Darcy’s elbow.

Uncertainty shoots through Barnes. His fingers go slack for a moment before he pulls them away, curling them into his palm to form a fist. Rogers stiffens, makes a frantic grab for Barnes’ hand, and winds up locking Barnes’ wrist in what might generously be called a the circle of his fingers. Barnes is of the opinion, however, that he has been restrained by titanium shackles with more give in them than Rogers’ hand right then.

Darcy begins pulling on Wilson’s elbow to expedite their exit from the room. “Hang on — hang on! Roommate etiquette!” The mercenary bends down even as Darcy yanks him backward. He loses a shoe, for some reason, and then pulls his sock off. “Signals!” He yells just before the door slams shut. “On the doorknob!” Comes through the solid wood, words muffled.

Barnes does not understand the reference.

“Sorry,” Rogers half-whispers. His face is pale. Two spots of color form high on his cheeks a moment later. He clears his throat. “I’m sorry,” he repeats.

“For what?” Barnes asks.

Rogers just shakes his head, his grip loosening. “I don’t — this. Is this okay?”

Sunlight slants through the windows opposite the bed. It’s moved in the time since he initially woke, no longer landing near enough to his face to give him the warm, red glow against the backsides of his eyelids. Barnes feels the weight of exhaustion tugging at his shoulder blades. It odd, the way something like that can settle in a part of you and then tug — pull until you give in, until you fall down, until you let it win.

“Yeah,” Barnes says. He turns onto his side then, shifts to face Rogers while remaining beneath the blankets. “This’s okay.”

Rogers exhales slowly, tension bleeding out of him. “Okay,” he says. “You gonna sleep?”

Barnes’ vibranium arm whirs softly, recalibrating. “Maybe,” he says. “Any way to find out who was in the facility before it imploded?”

“Besides you?”

Mouth quirking without his permission, Barnes says, “Besides me. And the twins.”

“They’re twins?”

“Yeah. They helped get me out of the lab.”

“That’s good. I’m glad they were able to help. That they wanted to.” Rogers has to be getting uncomfortable, leaning over as he is, but not a word of complaint escapes him. Typical.

“Self-interest,” Barnes replies, shrugging a little. “But they’re all right. Hydra made them.”

“Bruce said so, after looking through more of the data from the Hydra servers in Europe,” Rogers says, nodding.

“Yelena helped, too,” Barnes says softly, letting his mind drift. ‘Safety’ is not a commodity he has often had the pleasure of experiencing, but Rogers makes it seem entirely unlikely that a nefarious character will pop out of the woodwork to attack him. And Barnes knows that, if such a person did such a thing, Rogers would fight them off. He knows that now. The thread turned white. Rogers came for him. “Talia will want to know.”

“You can tell her all about it yourself,” Rogers says, tone matching Barnes’. “She’ll be back soon.”

“The thread’s white,” Barnes murmurs. His eyelids are heavy. The paranoia that lurks in his bones keeps whispering that falling asleep now is a bad idea — ill advised, poorly thought out. Trusting someone enough to sleep in front of them is dangerous. But he trusted Wilson and that turned out all right in the end. That turned out very well, in fact. Barnes wonders what it must be like for Wilson now, having found his soulmate. There is insecurity in the mercenary that Barnes wishes Wilson did not feel.

“The thread?” Rogers asks.

“Soulmark,” Barnes answers, the word pulled out of him. Finding other words is more difficult than he expects. “Mine. Yours. The thread’s white.”

“That’s real good, Buck,” Rogers says.

Barnes can tell from his tone alone that there is a smile on the other man’s lips, but his eyelids droop further, finally closing, and he cannot make himself open them again. “You came for me,” he says instead of trying to see Rogers. “Right? You found me again?”

“Yeah, Buck,” Rogers whispers. “I’ll always find you. As long as I’m breathing, I’ll find you.”

“Okay,” Barnes tries to say, but the word lacks actual form. He does not manage to enunciate. He allows himself to drift, the exhaustion tugging at him again, creeping up the back of his neck to pull — gently but insistently — at the base of his spinal cord. It makes him relax in increments, allows him to curl inward on his side.

Rogers keeps his hand where it is, fingers circling Barnes’ wrist. Rather than feeling restricted, Barnes finds the contact reassuring.

 

* * *

 

Four days later, Clint’s got a cup of coffee held carefully between his palms, the bottom of the giant, ceramic mug resting on his sternum, when Lucky hops up onto the couch at his feet, sniffs his socks, and then collapses on top of his shins. It’s been a weird couple days, having the Maximoff twins in the tower in addition to Barnes. But the cyborg assassin’s recovering from whatever it was that happened in the Hydra facility when Thor’s lightning brought the place down.

Wanda and Pietro slept for a solid eighteen hours, curled up on their sides facing one another like parentheses. They both woke up, inhaled every breakfast pastry they could get their hands on, and then pulled a pair of arm chairs into one of the corners in the common room. Clint guesses he can understand their wariness. They’re in an unfamiliar city — illegally — in a building owned by the man whose technology apparently killed their parents. They’ve got no idea what anyone here plans for them. Rather, they hadn’t had any idea. Steve and Barnes fixed that for them as soon as Barnes shuffled into the main room this morning.

“Morning,” Barnes had said.

Wanda had actually smiled. “Good morning,” she’d said.

“You two doin’ all right?”

“We are well, thank you,” Wanda had replied.

Barnes had nodded and continued his shuffle into the kitchen, where his Wilson had handed him a mug of coffee without a word. Clint had raised his own from his slumped position at the breakfast bar. He hadn’t had the energy for anything else, not after staying up half the night convincing Tasha that she didn’t need to bolt off to somewhere in Europe to look for Yelena Belova.

So now he’s kicked back on the couch, his dog was on his legs, and enough coffee to see him through the next hour. Ish. Maybe. If he takes small sips.

Wanda, at least, had opened up and started talking a bit — to Wilson, which. Clint isn’t sure how he feels about that. Probably everything’ll be fine. Or everything’ll explode. At this point, it’s a toss-up.

Wilson himself had dragged a third arm chair into the Maximoff’s corner, much to Pietro’s displeasure. Leaning forward now, he’s listening intently to Wanda’s account of the events in the Mexican Hydra base. Barnes, for his part, is seated on the couch opposite Clint. That one’s back is against a wall, so Clint figures that’s just sensible. Steve’s seated on the assassin’s right while Tasha’s taken up the cushion on his left. She’s leaning against him a little, her shoulder pressed against his metal bicep. Steve’s elbow brushes Barnes’, his head tilted to the side as he listens to Wanda, too.

“And then Mister Barnes — apologies,” Wanda says, glancing over toward the assassin. “I know you prefer simply Barnes. It is courtesy, which is habit.” Then she looks back at the mercenary as she continues, “Barnes, he pulled the door off of its hinges! It was clear in places, I did not think it would be safe. I thought he would be shot immediately, but he was not! It was bulletproof!”

Wilson’s nodding along with her story. At the bulletproof comment, though, he says “Yeah, that’s cause the future made it. Thanks to some friendly whales — like, there were bonfires, kumbaya sing-alongs, and peace pipes. Bonding ceremonies!”

“Wilson.” Barnes says the name quietly, but his voice carries.

The mercenary ignores him.

“They had excellent sushi, cause you know whales love sushi — but only the kind without rice. That’s cause they’re all worried about calories. The whales, I mean. But they really shouldn’t be. Only in the future, they’re all health conscious, cause they don’t wanna get killed for blubber — so less blubber, less death. Anyway — ”

“Wilson.” The name comes out of Barnes’ mouth in a long-suffering tone. It’s obviously he’s used to Wilson’s tangents, though he puts up a good front.

“ — rice-free sushi for the whales and clear, bulletproof plexiglass for the humans. Et voila! The Sarge _lives_!”

“Wilson. I will shoot you,” Barnes deadpans.

Blinking innocently over at the other assassin, Wilson says, “I’ll just spit the bullet back out. Waste of a high-caliber slug, if you ask me.”

Barnes sighs.

“Hashtag winning!” Wilson crows, raising his arms over his head.

Wanda smiles.

Pietro rolls his eyes.

Barnes shifts a little so his elbow pushes against Steve’s. Tasha, jostled out of her comfortable reverie, stands up and walks toward Clint. Eyes slit, he catches the way her gaze skates over the room, over the others in it.

“Guess what I found today,” Clint says.

Settling on the carpet in front of his sprawl on the couch, Tasha raises her eyebrows. She turns halfway, curling her arm onto the couch cushion so she can rest her chin on her elbow — so she can watch him. “What?” She asks.

Clint frees one hand from his mug and tugs the hem of his shirt up just enough for Tasha to see his side. In between two strands of spiderweb, one anchored to his hip and the other to his sternum, he has a circle of swirling color — half red, half blue — highlighted with a metallic silver.

“Don’t think they’ve noticed yet,” he says, keeping his voice soft.

“Interesting,” Tasha says, reaching out to touch his new mark.

“Yep,” Clint says. He pulls his shirt back down a moment later. Lucky woofs against his knee, looking at Tasha like he expects something from her.

They’re quiet for several long moments, listening as conversations pick up and shift, tides changing as Sam arrives. Tony steps into the room a moment later, Pepper at his side, but she’s looking at a datapad — barely gives the room a glance.

“Has Tony hacked the remote server?” Clint asks, humming softly when Tasha’s fingertips trail back under the fabric of his shirt. She taps out a silent pattern on his ribs, just above the new mark.

“Yes,” she answers. “It’s somewhere offshore. He complained a lot about rerouting signals and bouncing wifi. I tuned him out at that point, but he and Jarvis tracked it down. There’s apparently a _lot_ of footage on it — some dating back to before SHIELD fell.”

“The kinda footage that’ll make certain friends of ours angry?” Clint asks.

“Very,” Tasha replies. “Tony had to stop watching it. He’s letting Jarvis analyse it now.”

“Hm...” Clint slides his free hand over until it’s covering Tasha’s, his shirt separating their fingers. “So we’ve got our work cut out for us.”

“A lot of work,” she murmurs.

“Loop Maria in on things,” Clint suggests. He closes his eyes, building up the field and all their players. “Steve will stay here, focus on Barnes. We can split Sam between here and DC, use some of his military contacts.”

“Rhodes might have better contacts,” Tasha points out.

“Rhodes will be able to move things we need moved fast — last minute stuff, probably,” Clint corrects. “Sam’ll be able to get us on-the-ground intel — Middle Eastern places, at least. You’ve got Europe. I can deal with South America mostly. The other Wilson can probably help out with the rest of it.”

“Mercenary,” she says.

“Yep,” Clint agrees. “He’s got a whole web of contacts we don’t have access to. Not to mention he was building them up when I was still a carnie and you were learning how to throw a knife.”

“Point,” she concedes.

“So leave Rhodes where he is until we need some strings pulled. Tony’ll stay on intel and tech development. Play cavalry if we need him to,” Clint says, moving people around in his head. “Thor’ll do Thor. I think it’s best if we don’t plan to count on him, necessarily.”

“Or Bruce,” Tasha says.

“What’s wrong with Bruce?” Clint asks, opening one eye to look down at her.

“He’s been getting antsy again,” she says. “Ever since we found out what the scepter could do to people — what Hydra was doing to people. I think he might disappear again.”

“So we’ll keep an eye on him,” Clint murmurs. “Do what SHIELD did, make sure other people leave him alone.”

“You think Thor’ll go off-world again?”

“Soon,” Clint says, nodding. “Vibe I’m gettin’.”

“And the twins?” Tasha asks.

“Gotta figure out what they can do,” Clint says, shrugging. “But I’m pretty sure they’re here to stay.”

Tasha’s voice drops a little lower, barely audible as she says, “Vanya told me Lena was there, at the facility.”

“Yeah?” Clint asks. He knows this already, of course. He was there when Barnes told her three days ago.

“Do you think she made it out?” She’s been running herself around in circles asking that question, calculating probabilities, and subtly prodding at Wanda to try to get more information out of the younger girl.

“If anybody besides our three was gonna,” Clint says. Then he shrugs. “Jarvis will let you know for sure, right?”

“Yes,” Tasha mutters. She presses her cheek against her forearm for a moment, then sighs and shifts until she can rest her forehead against Clint’s shoulder, her hand still beneath his shirt like she needs the skin-to-skin contact to ground herself.

Nothing unsettles her quite as thoroughly as the Red Room. Hell, he hadn’t even known she was looking for somebody — let alone someone she’d been close enough to to consider a sister — until Wanda’s creepy probability thing in Mexico.

“It’ll be all right,” he says.

“You can’t guarantee that,” Tasha says, exhaling slowly.

“Nope,” Clint says. “But I can tip the odds in our favor. Which is what I intend to do.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue & Stinger for Walking Through Windows.

**Epilogue**

 

“Wilson,” Barnes says.

“Sarge,” Wilson replies.

Almost a month has passed since the Maximoff twins extracted him from the Mexican Hydra facility. They have settled in well at Howard’s son’s tower — Wanda demonstrating an earnestness and a willingness to learn that her brother completely lacks. Pietro, however, is loyal and protective to a fault. Neither of them are combat trained, but Rogers has offered to assist Barnes in ensuring their preparedness.

Natalia’s soulmate, having realized his platonic connection to both of the Maximoffs, has decided that it is his duty to make sure Wanda’s bolts of red lightning, which Barton has taken to calling hex bolts, land where she intends them to. Pietro is better suited to physical training, since in any situation that requires confrontation, his main job will be to make sure no one sneaks up on Wanda.

Barton is a surprisingly patient instructor. Rogers assists with Wanda’s training, focusing on angles and hitting targets using the vibranium shield as a ricochet point. Pietro spends Wanda’s lessons scowling until Barnes catches his eye and takes him to the weight room. He would run anyone in the tower into the ground — has, in fact, broken two of Howard’s son’s treadmills —  but strength training is something that is both challenging and meditative for him.

Neither Barnes nor Pietro talk much while lifting weights, but the speedster never makes any snarky comments about the vibranium arm and Barnes never brings up Sokovia.

Teaching the twins strategic thinking is not as difficult as Barnes anticipated. In part, this is because Wanda’s powers give her immense insight into the motivations of those around her — she reads people like books, so finding their weaknesses and exploiting them is a simple thing for her. Pietro follows her lead in this, enabling them to tag-team targets during simulations. The results are very positive.

It is remarkably easy to obtain legal identification for both of them with Pepper Potts in charge of the endeavor. Convincing them to legally change their citizenship from Sokovia to the United States — less so. Barnes narrows his eyes at Howard’s son’s insistence, but in the end, Rogers points out that there is no legitimate reason for them to switch their citizenship. Also, having international members on the team — aside from Natalia, who cannot truly be considered Russian any longer, despite her dual citizenship — would be advantageous on multiple levels.

“When are you leaving?” Barnes asks.

“You know about that?” Wilson hedges.

“Sure,” Barnes replies. “It’s not that difficult to figure out you’re gettin’ restless.”

“It’s been a while since we killed anybody,” Wilson agrees. After a pause, he clears his throat and offers, “Probably a coupla days.”

“Your insecurities are readily apparent.”

“Yeah, those things,” Wilson says, scrubbing at the back of his mask-covered head with one palm.

“Why’re you okay with me seein’ your face, but not her?”

“It’s different, is all.”

“It’d matter even less to her than it does to me,” Barnes says.

“You don’t know that.”

“Have you been payin’ attention to her at all?” Barnes frowns. “She’s pickin’ at you, tryin’ to figure out what she’s gotta do to get you to trust her.”

“I don’t trust easy,” Wilson shrugs.

Barnes merely arches an eyebrow at him.

“Anyway, I got a job — a contract,” Wilson says.

“Duration?”

“A couple months.”

“Maybe bein’ away from here will help you pull your head outta your ass,” Barnes says.

Wilson is actually startled into a laugh. “I gotta say, Sarge. I’m likin’ all this sass you got going on now. You still stealth in jokes every now and then when you’re actin’ like a robot, but it’s good to see you got your personality back.”

Barnes shrugs this time. “It’s a process.”

Wilson nods. “Anyway, I’ll have my burner. Just in case you need me for anything.”

Frowning, Barnes says, “I expect you to check in at least once every four days.”

“What? C’mon, Sarge. You don’t have to babysit me.”

“It’s not babysittin’.”

“What is it, then?”

“Makin’ sure you’re still alive. There’re people that actually care about that now,” Barnes says.

“Aw, you’re gonna make me wibble,” Wilson says, fluttering a hand in front of his face. The gesture loses something, given the fabric and mesh covering his features.

“Whatever you say, Wilson.” Glancing over the mercenary’s shoulder, Barnes asks, “Have you told her you’re leaving?” His enhanced hearing allowed him to hear the quiet footfalls approaching. His enhanced eyesight allows him to watch Darcy slowly fade back into the dimness at the end of the hall.

The mercenary, apparently not in possession of enhanced senses, does not notice her arrival or subsequent blending in trick. “Nope.”

Barnes catches the quiet intake of breath down the hallway. “You should.” _She knows now,_ he thinks to himself. He wonders if she intends to do something about Wilson’s plans to leave. It is probable, given what he knows about her, that she will not attempt to corral the mercenary. She will, in all likelihood, make him pay for this leaving without saying goodbye plan once he returns.

“I think I’ll let her figure it out on her own,” Wilson says.

Barnes wonders if the sound he hears at that moment is someone grinding their teeth. He doubts the mercenary will be lucky enough to make this up to Darcy with something simple like a never-ending supply of chocolate covered cherries or his weight in gold letters proclaiming her intelligence and wit. No, Darcy is most definitely the type of woman who will make her soulmate work for her forgiveness. “I never took you for a coward, Wilson.”

“Well, I never had somebody like that to tell before,” the mercenary shrugs.

“You’ve had ‘somebody like that to tell’ since 1989, Wilson,” Barnes says, shaking his head. “Anyway, miss a check-in and I’m coming after you.”

“Sir, yes sir,” Wilson says. The salute he gives Barnes is actually military-perfect, rather than sloppy, which is both mildly unexpected and oddly reassuring.

“I might bring her with me when I do,” Barnes continues.

“You wouldn’t.”

“I would,” Barnes says, smiling a little now. “Just to teach you a lesson.”

“That’s just mean, Sarge,” Wilson says. When Barnes just raises both his eyebrows this time, the mercenary sighs. “Yeah, yeah. All right. Every four days.”

“Excellent,” Barnes replies.

Two days later, Wilson returns the favor. Barnes walks in on him handing a list to Rogers.

“This’s his schedule. Make sure you stick to it. Breakfast — at least two cups of coffee, no sugar or cream or milk — no later than nine. Lunch by two. Make sure he eats double the amount of protein he thinks he should. Bacon and sausage go down easy, but he really likes that low sodium deli ham from down the street. Dinner by seven. I suggest fish. I’ve got his calendar attached to the list, so don’t let him miss any appointments,” Wilson is saying. Rogers looks both mildly baffled and very amused.

Barnes finds he does not like this combination.

“What,” he deadpans.

Rogers gives him the first page of the list. It is titled ‘The Care & Feeding of Sgt. J. B. Barnes, by Mr. W. W. Wilson, Esq.’ and is comprised mainly of Barnes’ food preferences.

“I eat more than fish tacos,” Barnes says.

“According to the list,” Rogers replies. “You also eat pancakes. With my face on them.”

Barnes has no idea how Rogers manages to keep his expression straight as he says that.

“Don’t worry, Cap,” Wilson says. “I gave Tone-Tone one of these, too.”

“What.”

“It’ll be all right, Buck,” Rogers says. “I hear they got pans that’ll put my face on most things now.”

“Tone-Tone hired a dude,” Wilson says. Barnes is unable to make the word ‘what’ leave his mouth again. “An official cook or something,” Wilson continues. “He’s supposed to be real good at getting stuff on pancakes. And he’s gonna make every single different kinda fish taco he can find on the internet.” Turning to Rogers, Wilson continues, “I’m _trusting_ you, Cap. If I come back and he’s all skin and bones again, I’ma be mad.”

“Don’t worry, Wilson,” Rogers says. “I got this.”

“I’ll show you what you got,” Barnes says. “In case you were wonderin’, it ain’t this.”

That turns out to be just the right thing to say to crack Rogers’ serious exterior. He starts laughing — just a chuckle, at first. Then he gets a little louder. Finally, he bends at the waist and braces one hand against his side. “Ah, God,” he says, half-wheezing.

Barnes just arches an eyebrow.

“That’s only the first half of the list,” Wilson says.

“It’s — ” Rogers interrupts himself with a laugh. “It’s pretty extensive, Buck.”

Barnes extends his hand for the second half of the list. Rogers gives it to him, still bent at the waist as he tries to control his urge to laugh. Barnes is both impressed and annoyed by Wilson’s list; while a lot of the items on it are mildly ridiculous and related to food, some of them would be very helpful.

It turns out that the ‘official cook or something’ Howard’s son hired is actually a world class chef. The man prepares the most delicious fish tacos Barnes has ever tasted for dinner that night. Barnes finds he cannot maintain his irritation with Wilson in the face of food like that.

Wilson’s plan is to leave two hours after dinner. Darcy is apparently in the lab, attempting to coax her unruly scientist into eating food that is not either liquid or made entirely of sugar. The mercenary thinks this will make leaving without saying goodbye easier.

Barnes finds him dawdling at the tower’s side entrance. He knows that Darcy has made herself scarce on purpose. Whether or not she is actually worrying about Doctor Jane Foster’s eating habits is unimportant.

“Wilson,” he says.

“Sarge,” Wilson replies.

“Take these,” Barnes orders, holding out two handguns in their holsters.

“What?” The mercenary actually seems startled.

“My third and sixth favorite guns,” Barnes says. “I expect you to bring them back in this or better condition.”

“I can’t take these.”

“Yes, you can.”

“Sarge — ”

“You can. And you will,” Barnes says, frowning until Wilson takes the guns from his hands.. “Also, these.” He holds out the roll of knife sheathes he had tucked under one arm. The lot of them are wrapped in several pieces of soft, thick cloth to protect them. “All of my favorite knives. Four of them are ceramic. Don’t break ’em.”

Wilson actually reaches for the edge of his mask, pulling it up and off of his face so Barnes can see his expression. In the weeks since Mexico, he has seen the mercenary’s face exactly twice. This makes the second time. “I won’t,” Wilson says, his scarred lips twisting into something most might mistake for a smile had they not seen the real thing on the mercenary’s face.

“There’s six or seven different types of explosives in that blanket roll, too,” Barnes says. “Experimental stuff. Howard’s son promised you’d have fun with ’em.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Barnes says. He digs into one of his pockets and pulls out a mobile phone. A Stark prototype, it came with what Howard’s son assured him were the most advanced applications and tracking software. He is almost entirely certain that Howard’s son did not realize he intended to hand this pinnacle of technological perfection over to Wilson, but — having disabled the electronic tracking features — that is precisely what he does. “Call on this. Despite Howard’s son’s assurances, it’s untraceable.”

“Every four days,” Wilson says, juggling the other items Barnes has given him so he can slide the Stark phone into one of the pouches on his belt.

“I still think you’re being ridiculous,” Barnes says.

Wilson shrugs. “I know you do.”

“Okay. Just so long as we’re clear.”

“Crystal,” Wilson says, quirking a misshapen smile.

“Soulmates...” Barnes starts the sentence, but has no idea how he intends to finish it. Then the words come to him and he finds himself shrugging. “She’ll be pissed when she finds out you’re gone. Pissed and probably hurt. But she’ll wait for you — just so she can have the pleasure of personally kickin’ your ass when you get back. Which, by the way, is a show I’ll definitely be watchin’.”

Snorting a quiet laugh, Wilson shakes his head. “I dunno, Sarge.”

“I do,” Barnes says. Then, feeling like what he intends to say might jinx him more than he has already been jinxed during his lifetime but knowing the mercenary needs to hear it, he finishes, “I mean, look at me and Rogers. Talk about waitin’ around to kick somebody’s ass. I got decades’ worth of ass-kickin’ to catch up on.”

Wilson freezes, eyes widening, and then he laughs. “You went there.”

Nodding, Barnes says, “Yeah, I did.” Then he tips his head to the side and gives the mercenary a rueful smile. “She’ll wait for you. And she won’t care about the scars.”

“Thanks, Sarge,” Wilson says. His voice is softer this time, repeating words he said before but meaning them in an entirely different fashion.

“Wilson,” Barnes says, nodding again. This is a different kind of gesture, though, like the mercenary’s words were a different kind of gratitude.

Turning on his heel, Barnes walks through the tower’s side entrance and makes sure it closes behind him. Wilson can take care of himself — he has something to prove, something only he thinks he’s missing — but whatever it is, it will not be able to kill him. Literally nothing has been able to kill him, so some introspection will not succeed where all else has failed.

Rogers and Thor are waiting for him when he exits the stairwell on the forty-fourth floor.

“He’s gone?” Rogers asks.

“Yeah,” Barnes says, nodding.

“Darcy will be most displeased,” Thor comments, frowning.

Shrugging, Barnes replies, “I told him that. Didn’t do any good.”

“He’s leaving tomorrow,” Rogers says, tilting his head in Thor’s direction.

“The vision I had...” The Asgardian trails off, his frown intensifying.

That statement requires no further explanation. Barnes vividly recalls the powers incident that caused Thor’s ‘vision’ and resulted in his decision to return to his homeworld. It had been quiet, which is what still strikes Barnes as odd. Thor did not thrash or scream — his session with Wanda in the training room had begun amusingly for everyone involved. Once they determined that even the Asgardian’s hammer-generated lightning could not penetrate Wanda’s telekinetic shield, they decided to see if she could use her powers to direct the lightning the way Rogers did with his vibranium shield.

It would have been fine, save the fact that Wanda tripped. She tripped, her powers flickered minutely, and a bolt of Thor’s lightning arced through the space between her hands. Faster than any of them could see, than any of them could process, that lightning froze and hung suspended between Wanda’s wide-spread fingers before turning a rusty, dried-blood red. Thor collapsed as his eyes sparked violet-blue, his hammer still held in his hand as he hit the ground.

The cameras in the training room, when they slowed down and reviewed the video footage that remained, showed Wanda’s power creeping through the lightning like an infection. When it reached Thor’s hammer, the nimbus surrounding all of them turned a vibrant purple and the shock wave that followed the meeting of hammer and red light was so violent that it knocked out even Howard’s son’s electronics.

“Yeah,” Barnes repeats. “Visions are a bitch like that, I’ve heard.” He has not heard, actually, but he has witnessed it now.

Rogers quirks a smile before turning to face Thor. “Are you taking Jane with you?”

“I think not,” Thor says, shaking his head. “There was much in the vision that was unclear, but I believe this to be an Asgardian matter. Involving Midgardians would be unwise.”

“Well, if you need us over there, just let us know. We’ll be ready,” Rogers says.

“The offer is most appreciated, shield brother,” Thor replies, nodding solemnly. “If we have need, I will request your aid before all others.”

Considering he and Rogers have not actually left the tower more than six times in the past month, Barnes is unsure about this particular exchange or the assertion that they will go anywhere when called. Then again, Rogers has demonstrated an extreme desire and ability to help friends in need, so — Barnes decides to reserve judgement until Thor actually asks for their presence on a different planet or world or whatever it is that Asgard is.

After some more quiet discussion, Thor departs for his suite. Barnes catches Rogers’ eye and raises a brow. “ _Sorry!_ , _Scrabble_ , or _Monopoly_?” He asks.

“I can’t believe you still wanna play those games,” Rogers groans as they begin walking.

“I like those games. And the one with apples Darcy brought last week,” Barnes replies, shrugging.

“ _Apples to Apples_ ,” Rogers supplies. “And yeah, you like ’em cause you always win.”

“I like ’em,” Barnes corrects, “because you can’t cheat. Which means I always win.”

“I’m Captain _America_ ,” Rogers begins, puffing up his chest a bit.

“Yeah,” Barnes snorts. “And Captain _America_ cheats at board games. You’d absolutely cheat at _Scrabble_ and _Monopoly_ if Darcy didn’t moderate. She’s a good banker.”

“Aw, Buck,” Rogers says, scuffing his shoe against the carpet as they make their way through now-familiar hallways.

“Don’t worry, Rogers,” Barnes says, quirking a smile. “I’ll keep keepin’ your secret. Make sure everybody else keeps underestimatin’ you. That way they’ll never see you comin’.”

“ _Sorry!_ ,” Rogers says. “Let’s play _Sorry!_ tonight.”

“Think we should invite Darcy?”

“I dunno,” Rogers says, scrubbing at the back of his neck. “She’ll be upset about Wilson leaving, won’t she?”

“Probably,” Barnes says. “But it’s like I told Wilson. She’ll wait around — just so she can give ’im hell when he gets back. And he’ll get back. He won’t be able to stay away.” Wilson does have other platonic soulmates — other soulmarks. Barnes hasn’t been able to make out much of the marks, but he knows they’re there, hidden beneath scar tissue and still-growing tumors. Maybe one of his other soulmates needs help now that Barnes has settled into the tower.

“Yeah,” Rogers agrees. “He’ll miss you guys.”

Barnes hums noncommittally before saying, “Kinda weird, Banner being gone.”

“Not so weird. He disappears sometimes. I think the scepter stuff really shook him up,” Rogers replies.

“Good thing Thor’s taking it back to Asgard with him,” Barnes mutters.

“Yeah. I dunno that Bruce liked the ideas popping into his head after he finished reading through all the notes Hydra left behind about the experiments. It was good of him to do it, though — to find out what exactly Doctor List and Baron von Strucker actually did to the twins,” Rogers says, frowning.

“That’s fair, though. Brilliant scientific ingenuity in the wrong hands can do amazing, terrible things.” Stretching out his vibranium hand, Barnes watches the light from the ceiling installations — not one of them fluorescent — glint off his knuckles. “And it’s good to know what happened to the other people they experimented on. That way Jarvis can keep an eye on them, make sure they don’t have some kinda delayed reaction while nobody’s looking.”

“Yeah, that is good,” Rogers says, smiling a little. “And Wanda seems to’ve taken to handling the tech here at the tower like a duck to water.”

“I think Jarvis helped her acclimate,” Barnes says. “She gets along with him better than Pietro. But I think Pietro’s mostly at loose ends. Gotta find somethin’ for that kid to do with himself. Somethin’ constructive. Liftin’ weights is only gonna keep him occupied for so long. He’s already gettin’ bored.”

“We’ll figure it out. You noticed Barton and Natasha sneaking around?”

“They’re not actually sneakin’,” Barnes says, amused. “They’re just doin’ what they do best — manipulatin’ people into the positions they want ’em to be in.”

“What d’you figure they want people to be in those positions for?”

“Probably so they can figure out finishin’ off Hydra,” Barnes answers. It seems simple enough a train of logic for him to follow. “Got the whole South American side of things to deal with. Mexico was just the tip of the iceberg.”

“Makes sense,” Rogers says, nodding. “You think they’ll set things in motion officially any time soon?”

“Maybe,” Barnes says. “Maybe not. Depends on what their endgame is — complete destruction up front, infiltration and data retrieval _then_ complete destruction, or somethin’ else.”

“I’m very in favor of complete destruction,” Rogers says, the corners of his lips turning down.

“I know you are. We’ll help out, when they ask. Let ’em scheme for a little while longer. They seem to enjoy it.” Pausing to push open the door to his suite, Barnes tips his head to the side. “C’mon, let’s ask Darcy if she wants to come keep an eye on you. Worst that happens is she says no and you figure out a way to cheat at _Sorry!_ ”

“You’re never gonna let that go, are you?” Rogers says with a put-upon sigh. Then he nods, smiles, and fishes his phone out of his pocket. “Yeah, okay. I’ll text her.”

* * *

**Stinger**

 

**Three Months Later...**

Yelena Belova was born in 1989 to a poor family with too many children to feed and no hope of finding suitable income after the Iron Curtain fell. By the age of two, she had drifted through three different families, all ill equipped to care for a young child. Eventually, she settled in an orphanage. It was through some stroke of luck — whether good or bad, she had never been able to decide — that that particular orphanage happened to be a front for the Red Room.

Small for her age, her blonde hair and blue eyes attracted the attention of the organization’s recruiters. Before her next birthday, she was ensconced in the Red Room’s bare, white-walled nursery. She grew there, trained there, met her soulmate there. Her instructors kept their eyes on the girls, carefully documenting each and every change in their soulmarks. But Yelena was something of a special case. Her mark was small, almost invisible against her fair skin. It was difficult for her to see at the best of times.

Her teachers believed her to be one of those who did not have a soulmark at all — or one whose soulmark would be later, when her soulmate was born. Yelena knew, however, that there was virtually no part of her that her soulmark didn’t touch at one time or another. It moved, only its innate warmth indicating any change in its location to her.

Yelena knew the moment she met him, of course. She knew it in her bones. Something inside her shook, her foundations rocking and resettling. Later, she would discover the name he was born with. Later, they would work together, slowly becoming accustomed to one another and the secrecy they maintained by necessity. His mark was not small, but it was also not large. It was, however, very visible. It shot up the column of his throat in a straight line, branching outward along beneath his jaw on each side. The mark was dark, small specks of gold glinting through it in shifting patterns before bursting into all the colors of a sunset — Yelena’s soul had marked its mate with the tree of life.

Considering the skills they learned, both together and separately, she thought it was a cruel sort of cosmic joke. There was no way to control what mark her sold left, Yelena knew that, but the tree of life in all its splendor, its branches spread wide over the throat of one of Russia’s best assassins? To say nothing of the fact that _her_ soul, tarnished and bruised as it was, had created such beauty — it seemed a mockery. But it also seemed somehow fitting. If she could find nowhere else to put the truth of her soul, then her soulmate’s skin was as good a place as any. And this way, at least she could see it whenever she saw him.

Things might have continued that way, had she not reached the age of seventeen and undergone the Red Room’s particular version of a graduation celebration. No one talked about it, not explicitly, but all the girls knew. All the girls understood what would happen. Yelena can confirm now, all these years later, that the whispers and rumors were accurate.

She was taken to the infirmary. She was put to sleep. They took away her ability to bear children — to create life and to know an unconditional type of love that might have superceded her loyalty to the Red Room itself — and then they injected her with something. She woke screaming, fire racing through her veins, and continued to scream even as the soldiers in the room threw themselves on top of her in an attempt to minimize the damage she was doing to herself as she convulsed. They were gone a moment later — most of them. Not that it mattered. They’d taken almost everything from her, but she could still feel her soulmark, hidden on the underside of her chin that day. As long as they didn’t find out about that — as long as he was safe, she thought that they could overcome even this newest violation.

Instead, they did the same to him, to her soulmate with his tree of life glowing and glinting as he reared back against his restraints. He snapped seven of the eight. Yelena knows this only because they allowed her to watch the process so that she could understand what it was she had gone through. They thought she’d be able to help the other girls, when it was their time to undergo the procedure — to graduate.

So she watched them inject her soulmate with something — some serum, like but not-like the one that they’d given her, and she watched him lose his mind. It wasn’t a quiet, branching fracture. It was violent. It was desolate. It was a glacier sloughing off its weakest section in slow motion, leaving death in its wake because the bystanders are so caught up in the beauty of its destruction. Yelena watched. Yelena listened. Yelena understood her position and his. Yelena knew that if she was to plan something it would have to be perfectly timed and carefully executed.

So she planned.

She schemed.

She worked harder than anyone else. Nata watched, assisted where she could, but Nata was gone on missions of her own, her arrows buried in the skin at the base of her spine. No one knew what Nata’s arrows meant, especially not the one embedded over her heart from the back, but no one knew much of anyone’s soulmarks. Enigmas — the symbolism of another person’s soul was a complicated thing to try to pick apart.

Then Nata disappeared and the Winter Soldier went back into cryostasis. The two events had to be connected, of course. It hurt her, that she was unable to go with her sister, but. But she had something else to see to, first. Something that was far more important to her.

Eight years later, escape came with more difficulty and pain than she would have liked, but she anticipated that — she used the Winter Soldier’s latest, briefest reappearance to her advantage. Getting injured so badly that she had to be taken to the secure medical facility where the remnants of the Red Room were holding her soulmate — now that he was too unstable for regular missions — meant that it took her several weeks to be well enough to implement the escape plan, but eventually she did. Eventually, both she and Nico made it out of that godforsaken place.

She thinks about that now, standing in front of the cryogenic tank. Yelena thinks about the choices she’s made throughout her life that have led her to this moment. There’s a window in the front of the tank through which she can see Nico’s face. His eyes are open, ice crystallized over them, and his jaw is dropped in a frozen gasp. She assumes it was a pained sound that he made in the moment the chemicals took him. He has one hand up, reaching for the little window.

Extending her own hand, Yelena brushes her fingertips over the glass, just where Nico’s would have touched, had he not been frozen mid-reach, and then tucks a little card into the corner of the tank’s window. It’s more a photograph than a card, but an odd one. Just a pair of lips pressed to a cheek — anonymous. But she knows — and Nico knows — that those are her lips on his cheek.

Turning away from the cryogenic tank, she straightens her spine and folds her hands at its base. Maintaining parade rest, she waits for the man standing to her left her to speak.

“You are satisfied, Miss Belova?”

“Not at all,” she replies. “But I am not dissatisfied, either. So our arrangement stands. What do you require of me, Doctor Faustus?”

“We need you to bait a trap, Miss Belova.”

“A trap.”

“Yes, it’s simple. Wire a building to explode. Bait the trap to lure in our target. Collapse the building on her. Then we will bring her here for questioning.”

“You will show me the progress you’ve made on correcting the serum he was given,” Yelena says, her voice devoid of emotion.

“Of course.”

“You’ll do that before I wire anything or lure anyone.”

“Yes, yes. Please, don’t worry about that. We’ve made great strides in repairing his system.”

Yelena says nothing for several long moments, still standing at parade rest, and then slowly nods. “All right. Target?”

“Natasha Alia Romanoff, formerly Natalia Alianovna Romanova,” Doctor Faustus replies. “She is our main priority. Once we acquire her, the other assets we require will come to us.”

She knew, of course. Yelena knew that it would come to this eventually. She’d just hoped it would be farther off in the future. She’d hoped she’d be able to work some way out of this situation for herself and Nico, for her sister and everyone Natalia loves.

It seems, however, that Yelena has run out of time.

Leviathan understands leverage and blackmail in ways that the Red Room could only have dreamed of when Yelena was there. Leviathan has more power, more tendrils of influence, in every government organization she could name. She has no choice. They have her soulmate — she _gave_ them her soulmate. And now... now she’s going to give them her sister and her sister’s soulmates. Which means all of them — all of the Red Room’s best, most talented assets. Nata’s Winter Soldier will follow her. The Winter Soldier’s Captain will follow him. The archer will come for Nata as well — will likely prove an excellent candidate for the refined serum Leviathan has been perfecting for Nico. They must make sure, obviously, that it does what it’s meant to do and doesn’t result in another, more terrible version of Nico.

Because you don’t abandon your soulmate. You don’t let them disappear into the ether. No, you follow them down as they fall. You destroy anything and everything that attempts to harm them. And you walk into traps that you know have been waiting years for you because there’s the smallest chance that the people who laid the traps might be able to save them.

“Show me the lab work,” she says.

**Author's Note:**

> Zip turned me onto [napricot](http://archiveofourown.org/users/napricot/pseuds/napricot), who writes lovely, wonderful fic. Go read it all, if you haven't already. That, in turn, got us both listening to The National. We hypothesize that The National have secretly been shipping Bucky/Nat since 2001 and that they are _not_ subtle about it. (Note: this fic is not going to wind up being Bucky/Nat, despite my beliefs about The National, nor is it heading for an OT4.) That said, I took a _lot_ of inspiration for this fic from the song quoted in the summary, so if you have a chance, definitely check it out. 
> 
>   **A Sort-Of Soundtrack:**
> 
>  "[Graceless](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jpz_gUyImhw)" by The National 
> 
> "[Set the Fire to the Third Bar](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfa9yxCpWoA)" by Snow Patrol, featuring Martha Wainwright (the fic was very nearly titled Ghosts With Just Voices)
> 
> "[Slow Show](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCR0Tr2HTfA)" by The National (the fic was almost titled The Wall Leaned Away) 
> 
> Go forth and listen, if you're so inclined.


End file.
